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mtlieCitpofl^mfark 

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GIVEN  BY 


H.  W.  Wilson 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NKW  YORK  •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA.  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


WHERE 
DO  YOU  STAND? 

AN  APPEAL  TO  AMERICANS 
OF  GERMAN  ORIGIN 


BY 

HERMANN  KAOEbbR^ 


'Come:,  let  us  reason  ncgithfj.* 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1918 

All  rights  reserved 


GIFT  OF 
H.  W.  WILSON 
MAR  2  2  1929 


Copyright,  1918 

By  The  McCluee  Publications 
Incorporated 


I  '^««  <*'<'  'CapYmdnT,  1918 
,   '  B£.  TF'if'MACilflLLijI  COMPANY 

iS6t  up   and  e^ecLrfryped.      F jivSlisher) ,   March,    1918 


34 


4    ::: 


TO 

THE  MEMORY  OF  MY  GRANDFATHER 

FRIEDRICH  SCHWEDLER 

A     SAXON     BY     BIRTH,     AN     EXILE     BY     CHOICE,     A 

STAUNCH    AND    SUCCESSFUL    DEFENDER    OF 

AMERICAN   IDEALS   BY   THE   GRACE 

OF  HIS  OWN   HIGH  SPIRIT 

He  fled  from  Saxony  after  the  revolution  of 
1848  and  1849,  leaving  a  thriving  business  and  a 
congenial  circle  of  fellow-musicians  to  find  in 
America  the  freedom  which  his  own  country  de- 
,nied  him.  As  editor  and  proprietor  of  the  "New 
Yorker  Demokrat"  (now  the  "New  Yorker  Her- 
old")  he  vigorously  fought,  in  New  York  through 
his  daily,  in  the  Middle  West  through  his  weekly, 
for  the  election  of  Lincoln  in  1860.  Lincoln, 
stopping  in  New  York  on  his  way  to  his  first 
inauguration,  sent  for  him  and  thanked  him  for 
his  successful  efforts  in  winning  to  his  candidacy 
the  support  of  German-Americans.  To  the  day 
of  his  death,  Friedrich  Schwedler  carried  in  his 
face  like  a  consecration  the  memory  of  the  thanks 
of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

For  his  valiant  defence  of  the  Union  whose 
language  he  never  mastered  but  whose  ideals  he 

V 


loved  and  served  with  single-minded  devotion,  he 
deserves  to  be  remembered  by  his  countrymen. 

His  grandchildren  who  knew  him  not  as  a  de- 
fender of  a  great  cause  but  as  a  dear,  slender  old 
gentleman  with  snow-white  hair  and  a  ruddy  skin 
and  faded,  childlike  blue  eyes — a  snuff-box  in  his 
waistcoat  and  a  red  silk  handkerchief  trailing 
somewhere  behind — will  always  remember  him 
gratefully  as  their  most 'welcome  playmate.  The 
"Kuss  Walzer"  and  "Als  ich  noch  im  Fliigel- 
kleide"  and  certain  bits  of  Chopin  today  retain 
for  them  a  magic  of  their  own  which  he,  thirty 
or  more  years  ago,  first  evoked  from  the  keys. 

In  the  midst  of  a  great  battle,  fellow  American 
and  fellow  fighter,  your  old  playmate  salutes  you! 

H.  H. 

Sunnytop  Farm,  Fairfield,  Connecticut, 

on  Friedrich  Schwedler's  hundredth  birthday, 
January  25,  1918. 


vl 


FATHERLAND 
(Winter  1914-1915) 

There  is  no  sword  in  my  hand 

Where  I  watch  oversea. 
Father's  land,  mother's  land, 

What  will  you  say  of  me 
Who  am  blood  of  your  German  blood, 

Through  and  through. 
Yet  would  not,  if  I  could 

Slaughter  for  you? 
What  will  you  say  of  one 

Who  has  no  heart 
Even  to  cheer  you  on? 

No  heavens  part. 
No  guiding  God  appears 

To  my  strained  eyes. 
Athwart  the  fog  of  fears 

And  hates  and  lies, 
I  see  no  goal;  I  mark 

No  ringing  message  flying ; 
Only  a  brawl  in  the  dark 

And  death  and  the  groans  of  the  dy- 
ing. 


Vll 


FATHERLAND 

I  love  you,  German  land, 

Your  hills,  your  fields. 
Where  cornflower  and  poppy  stand 

Amid  the  golden  yields. 
I  love  your  forests;  deep, 

And  full  of  half -heard  wonders 
Are  they.     The  witches  keep 
Their  revels  still  to  the  thunder's 

Rolling  music;  and  still 
Fairies  run  amid  leaves 

Through  the  beeches  and  up  the  hill 
Where  the  ruined  castle  grieves 

For  the  dear,  departed  throngs, 
While  up  from  the  vale 

Come  the  palpitant,  clear  songs 
Of  cuckoo  and  nightingale. 

I  love  your  rivers.     The  Rhine 

For  the  sake  of  dear,  lost  hours 
Lives  in  this  heart  of  mine. 

In  its  ancient  towers 
Roland  and  Charlemagne 

And  the  plumed  hosts 
From  Askelon  and  Spain 

Were  more  than  tedious  ghosts 
Clanking  through  musty  pages, 

For  in  these  halls  awoke 


FATHERLAND 

The  dead  and  ashen  ages, 

And  lived  and  glowed  and  spoke. 

I  love  your  towns  that  dream 

Through  the  long  warm  day, 
Where  the  brown  and  laggard  stream 

Takes  his  well-ordered  way 
Silently,  lest  he  rouse. 

Bewildered,  aghast. 
The  placid  burghers  that  drowze 

In  the  quiet  lap  of  the  past. 
I  love  your  market-places 

Where  the  Rathaus  clock  looks  down 
On  the  weathered  peasant  faces 

And  the  ladies  of  the  town, 
Bonnetted  and  mildly  splendid, 

Haggling,  with  hot  argument, 
As  though  all  the  world  depended 

On  the  penny  saved  or  spent. 
(I  can  hear  the  chatter  now 

And  see  the  queer,  round  hat 
And  dowdy  gown  of  the  Frau 

0  berregierimgsrat ; 
And  smell  the  odors,  drifting 

Warmly  among  the  stalls, 
And  see  the  colors  shifting 

Against  the  Square's  grey  walls.) 


FATHERLAND 

I  love  the  streets  that  slumber 

Silent  and  full  of  the  past. 
Ghosts  without  number     • 

Are  there ;  and  outlast 
The  living  that  come  and  go 

With  their  day  of  laughter  and  pain ; 
For  ever  the  great  names  glow 

On  the  walls  and  the  ghosts  remain. 

I  love  your  songs ;  to  me 

They  are  of  the  kin  of  fire 
And  wind  and  sea 

And  all  things  that  aspire 
Sunward  and  starward;  glad 

As  boyhood  love  in  Spring; 
Tender  as  mother-pity,  sad 

As  men  remembering 
June,  amid  falling  leaves. 

Others  have  made  high  songs 
Of  love  and  summer  eves 

And  swords  and  thongs. 
But  your  songs  were  not  made. 

Out  of  the  heart's  deep  pang 
As  out  of  the  scabbard  the  blade 

Shining  and  sharp  they  sprang. 
I  love  your  dreamers 

That  climb  and  ask  not  wings — 


FATHERLAND 

Patient  and  plodding  schemers 

Of  intricate,  infinite  things ; 
Your  scholars,  who  labor  and  fall 

Unseen,  unregarded, 
To  fit  one  stone  in  the  wall 

Of  the  temple,  and  die,  rewarded 
If  the  stone  shake  not  in  the  gale. 

Truly,  they  stand  in  the  ranks 
Of  heroes  who  died  for  the  Grail 

And  asked  of  nc  man  thanks. 

For  you,  your  men  of  dreams 

And  your  strong  men  of  deeds 
Crumble  and  die  with  screams 

And  under  hoofs  like  weeds. 
Are  trampled ;  for  you 

In  city  and  on  hill 
Voices  you  knew 

And  needed,  are  still; 
And  roundabout 

Harbor  and  shoal 

The  lights  of  your  soul 
Go  out. 
To  what  end,  0  fatherland? 

I  see  your  legions  sweep 

Like  waves  up  the  grey  strand. 

I  hear  your  women  weep, 
xi 


FATHERLAND 

And  the  sound  is  as  the  groaning 

Swish  of  the  ebbing  wave — 
A  nation's  pitiful  moaning 

Beside  an  open  grave. 
Ah,  fatherland,  not  all 

Who  love  you  most. 
Armed  to  conquer  or  fall 

March  with  your  mighty  host. 
Some  there  are  yet,  as  I, 

Who  stand  apart 

And  with  aching  heart 
Ponder  the  Whither  and  Why 
Of  the  tragic  story, 

Crying  with  bated  breath: 
Spirit  I  knew,  can  this  be  glory? 

Spirit  beloved,  this  is  death! 


The  Author  is  indebted  to  the  Editor  of  Poetry  for 
permission  to  reprint  these  lines  which  in  part  ap- 
peared originally  in  that  magazine. 


Xii 


WHERE 
DO  YOU  STAND? 


AN  APPEAL  TO  AMERICANS 
OF  GERMAN  ORIGIN 


WHERE  do  you  stand? 
North  and  South,  East  and 
West,  in  every  part  of  the  country, 
that  question  is  today  being  ad- 
dressed to  us,  Americans  of  German 
origin.  In  words;  or  if  not  in  words, 
in  glances;  in  hand-shakes  less 
friendly  than  they  used  to  be;  in 
countless  ways,  that  question  is  being 
put  to  us,  morning,  noon  and  night: 
Where  do  you  stand? 

A  few  have  by  their  actions  an- 
swered that  they  stand  first  and  last 
with  Germany,  and  they  have  been  put 
under  lock  and  key. 


2     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

A  greater  number  have  declared 
unmistakably  that  they  stand  with 
America  against  Germany;  and  they 
have  been  greeted  by  their  country- 
men as  Americans  who  have  been  put 
to  a  bitter  test  and  have  not  been  found 
wanting. 

But  the  majority,  the  large  majority, 
have  not  answered  at  all.  In  the  face 
of  that  question,  they  have  grumbled, 
hotly  declaring  their  indignation  that 
any  one  should  dare  for  an  instant  to 
doubt  their  absolute  loyalty  to  the 
United  States.  "I  deny  any  one  the 
right  to  ask  me  where  I  stand,"  they 
cry.  "I  am  an  American  citizen.  I 
have  always  been  a  conscientious 
citizen.  As  such  I  naturally  support 
my  government.  To  question  my 
Americanism  is  an  insult  that  I  will 
not  tolerate." 

They  are  absolutely  sincere  when 
they  say  that;  and  yet,  may  one  not 
wonder  whether  they  are  quite  awake 
to  the  gravity  of  their  own  situation  or 
the  peril  of  their  country  when  they 
thus  reject,  as  an  affront,  the  simple 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     3 

request  of  their  fellow-citizens  that  in 
this  great  crisis  they  declare  them- 
selves clearly  and  unmistakably? 

"Why  should  we  German- Americans 
alone  be  called  upon  to  give  evidence 
of  our  complete  loyalty?"  they  cry. 
"It  is  not  patriotism  that  prompts  our 
neighbors  to  ask  us  were  we  stand. 
It  is  hatred,  it  is  intolerance,  it  is  the 
spirit  of  the  Inquisition!  We  should 
be  weak  to  bow  to  it.  Not  we  are  the 
ones  who  are  faithless  to  the  ideals  of 
the  Republic.  Those  who  raise  the 
race  issue,  those  who  cast  distrust  upon 
us,  not  because  we  have  shown  our- 
selves deserving  of  distrust,  but  be- 
cause we  happen  to  have  German 
names  and  German  blood  and  German 
words  on  our  lips — they  are  the  ones 
who  are  faithless,  they  are  the  ones 
who  are  today  splitting  open  our 
country.  Do  not  come  to  us  with  your 
long  faces,  lamenting  about  a  di- 
vided people.  Go  to  them!  Show 
them  the  error  of  their  ways  and  you 
will  have  the  united  nation  you  want. 
You  will  never  achieve  it  by  persecut- 


4    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

ing  a  body  of  citizens,  of  proved  in- 
tegrity and  conscientiousness,  merely 
because  they  are  not  of  British  origin. 
Never  in  this  world!" 

Thus,  or  in  similar  words,  these 
Americans  of  German  blood  answer 
the  question:  Where  do  you  stand? 
Because  they  are  naturally  grieved  at 
heart  that  the  country  of  their  adoption 
should  be  warring  with  the  country  of 
their  origin,  because  possibly  they  are 
themselves  convinced  of  their  own 
complete  loyalty  to  the  United  States, 
they  are  sensitive.  They  know  that 
they  have  been  excellent  citizens  in  the 
past,  that  men  of  their  race  fought  to 
build  the  Union  and  that  others  fought 
to  preserve  it,  and  that  hundreds  of 
thousands  more  have,  year  by  year,  in 
the  city,  the  state  and  the  nation  stood 
with  their  ballots  as  bulwarks  against 
public  corruption.  They  are  proud  of 
their  record — they  have  a  right  to  be 
proud — and  their  pride  has  been  hurt. 

And  yet — is  there  not  another  side 
to  the  matter? 

We  are  engaged  in  a  great  war. 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     5 

This  war  involves  not  two  nations  only, 
but  the  whole  world.  It  is  not  a  war 
for  the  correction  of  a  boundary,  the 
possession  of  a  colony,  the  monopoly 
of  any  trade  route.  The  war  is  cost- 
ing each  of  the  nations  involved  more 
in  mere  money  in  a  week  than  any 
trade  monopoly  could  yield  them 
profits  in  a  year,  or  any  colony  in 
ten  years  or  any  readjusted  boundary 
in  a  hundred.  This  is  not  a  war  for 
dollars  on  either  side.  No  men  fight 
for  dollars  the  way  the  armies  are 
fighting  in  France  and  Flanders.  They 
fight  thus  only  for  religion  or  a  prin- 
ciple. 

The  principle  for  which  Germany  is 
fighting  is  the  principle  of  government 
by  centralized,  monarchical  control 
and  supervision.  The  principle  for 
which  America  and  the  Allies  are  fight- 
ing is  the  principle  of  government  by 
popular  control. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  endeavor  to 
prove  which  principle  is  right  and 
which  principle  is  wrong.'  The  essen- 
tial point  is  that  in  a  war  of  principles 


6     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

such  as  this,  in  a  war  of  conflicting 
political  religions,  the  belligerents  are 
divided  not  altogether  by  boundary 
lines  but  to  a  great  extent  by  the  per- 
sonal convictions  of  individuals.  A 
German  like  Liebknecht  who  is  willing 
to  go  to  prison  because  he  thinks  the 
principle  for  which  Germany  is  fight- 
ing is  wrong,  is,  in  this  War,  not  on 
the  side  of  Germany  but  on  the  side  of 
America  and  the  Allies.  A  citizen  of 
the  United  States,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  believes  that  the  principle  for 
which  Germany  is  fighting  is  right  and 
the  principle  for  which  America 
and  the  Allies  are  fighting  is  wrong, 
is,  in  this  War,  not  on  the  side  of  Amer- 
ica but  on  the  side  of  Germany,  and  it 
is  inessential  whether  his  origin  be 
German,  French,  English  or  Choctaw. 
The  question  is  not:  Where  do  you 
come  from?  but  What  are  your  con- 
victions? In  a  war  merely  between 
nations  there  may  be  intelligent  indi- 
viduals in  all  the  nations  involved  who 
may  be  neutral;  but  not  in  a  war  of 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     7 

conflicting  principles.  There  are  no 
neutrals  in  this  war. 

Where  do  you  stand?  The  question 
has  been  put  to  nations  and  to  men 
again  and  again  since  that  tragic  day 
in  1914  when  the  Great  War  began. 
Turkey  and  Bulgaria  answered  it  in 
one  way;  Serbia  and  Belgium  an- 
swered it  in  another.  Here  in  our 
own  country,  men  began  even  in  the 
first  month  of  the  War  to  ask  them- 
selves the  same  question,  and  to  ask 
it  of  their  neighbors,  knowing  even 
then  that  this  War  involved  issues  so 
fundamental  that  no  ties  of  friendship 
could  long  withstand  a  difference  of 
conviction  there. 

The  same  question,  Where  do  you 
stand?  was  put  to  the  government  and 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  Not 
only  the  Allies,  not  only  pro-Ally  lead- 
ers in  America,  but,  in  a  sense,  even 
Germany  herself  put  the  question  to  us 
in  every  protesting  word  she  spoke 
concerning  America's  dealings  in  loans 
and  munitions  with  the  Allies.     ''He 


8     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

who  is  not  for  us  is  against  us.  Where 
do  you  stand?" 

On  April  2nd,  1917,  the  President 
gave  his  answer. 

To  the  President,  to  public  officials, 
public  leaders  and  private  citizens  of 
whatever  origin  all  over  the  country, 
the  question  has  been  squarely  put, 
'Where  do  you  stand?''  and  the  ma- 
jority of  them  have  squarely  an- 
swered: "/  stand  with  and  for  the 
United  States  and  against  Germany^'* 

Why  should  we  Americans  of  Ger- 
man origin  be  treated  with  more  ten- 
der consideration  than  the  President  or 
than  citizens  of  other  origin? 


II 

THERE  is  no  reason.     There  is,  on 
the  other  hand,  every  reason  why 
the  question  should  be  put  to  us. 

Before  America's  entrance  into  the 
[War,  the  majority  of  Americans  of 
German  blood  were  frankly  pro-Ger- 
man. The  public  utterances  of  their 
leaders,  the  resolutions  adopted  by 
their  societies,  the  editorials  in  the 
German  language  newspapers,  reli- 
gious as  well  as  secular,  were  all  pro- 
German  and  bitterly  opposed  to  any 
action  in  opposition  to  what  the  Gov- 
ernment considered  not  unjustly,  to 
be  Germany's  infringement  of  Amer- 
ica's rights.  That  portion  of  the 
American  people  which  is  not  of 
jGerman  blood  conceived,  whether 
rightly  or  wrongly,  the  idea  that 
jGerman-Americans  regarded  as  right 

and     just     everything     which     Ger- 
9 


10     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

many  did  or  demanded ;  and  regarded 
as  utterly  iniquitous  any  action  which 
America  might  take  in  opposition  to 
those  deeds  or  in  contravention  of 
those  demands.  No  German-Ameri- 
can leader,  no  German-American  so- 
ciety or  newspaper,  ever  publicly 
voiced  any  sincere  indignation  against 
the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  which 
stands  today  and  will  always  stand  as 
the  symbol  of  Germany's  aggression 
against  America's  rights  and  Amer- 
ica's honor.  The  Americans  who 
were  not  pro-German  drew  the  con- 
clusion— mistaken,  I  believe — that 
Americans  of  German  blood  as  a  body 
approved  and  applauded  that  act. 

America  is  now  at  war  if  not  solely 
at  least  incidentally  in  consequence  of 
the  destruction  without  warning  of  the 
Lusitania  and  other  ships. 

The  German-Americans  for  various 
reasons  tacitly  or  openly  approved  of 
those  sinkings. 

Can  we,  Americans  of  German 
blood,  absolutely  loyal  as  we  may  be, 
wonder  that  other  Americans  should, 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     11 

with  a  worried  look,  ask  us,  "Say,  old 
man,  where  do  you  stand?'* 

To  ask  that  question,  not  with 
rancor  in  the  heart  or  fire  in  the  eye 
but  in  all  friendliness,  is  not  a  slur 
on  any  man's  Americanism.  It  is  not 
persecution.  It  is  not  an  evidence  of 
anti-German  hysteria.  It  is  plain 
common  sense  based  on  the  estab- 
lished record  of  German-American 
opinion  during  the  two  and  a  half 
years  preceding  America's  entrance 
into  the  War.  During  those  years,  we 
Americans  of  German  origin  permit- 
ted the  rest  of  the  American  people  to 
gather  the  impression  that  we  were 
all,  without  exception  and  without  re- 
serve, ardently  and  wholeheartedly  for 
Germany  and  all  its  works. 

Can  we  blame  them  if  they  look 
upon  us  today  in  the  light  of  that  im- 
pression and  say,  "In  March  you  were 
for  the  Kaiser  and  you  made  no  bones 
about  it.  Today,  where  do  you 
standi 

Such  a  question  cannot  be  dismissed 
with  an  indignant  rebuke  and  a  look  of 


12     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

wounded  pride  and  the  general  pro- 
test that  an  American  of  German 
origin  is  as  good  a  patriot  as  any  other 
American.  Nor  can  it  be  satisfac- 
torily evaded  by  the  declaration  on  the 
part  of  the  man  questioned  that  he  does 
not  recognize  the  hyphen  but  considers 
himself  an  American  and  nothing  but 
an  American  and  therefore  refuses  to 
answer  questions  based  on  the  assump- 
tion that  he  is  a  German-American. 
We  are  dealing  here  not  with  the  names 
of  things  but  with  the  things  them- 
selves. A  man  of  recent  German 
origin  may  rightly  choose  not  to  call 
himself  a  German-American.  But 
that  choice  does  not  alter  the  fact  that 
his  origin  is  German.  It  does  not  alter 
the  fact  that  a  great  many  other  peo- 
ple of  the  same  origin  have  for  several 
years,  in  season  and  out  of  season, 
publicly  and  privately,  expressed  their 
unmodified  approval  of  all  Germany's 
words,  deeds,  methods  and  ambitions. 
He  may  call  himself  a  red  Indian  or  a 
pink  carnation,  but  the  fact  remains 
that  he  is  a  man  of  German  blood  to 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     13 

whom  other  Americans  have  a  right 
in  this  crisis  to  say,  '^Neighbor,  this  is 
a  difficult  business  for  you,  isn't  it? 
Vm  sorry  as  the  devil  for  you.  But — 
so  there  wont  be  any  misunderstand- 
ing— tell  me  exactly,  where  do  you 
stand?" 

German-Americans  have  been  asked 
that  question  again  and  again,  and  the 
majority  have,  in  the  face  of  it,  clung 
to  a  half  scornful,  half  indignant  si- 
lence. 

The  average  American  of  other 
blood  than  German  is  by  nature  quick 
in  jumping  at  conclusions,  a  little  too 
quick.  Under  the  lash  of  war  he  is 
inclined  to  be  even  quicker.  Because 
an  American  with  a  German  name  and 
a  German  cast  of  features  refuses  per- 
sistently to  declare  himself  for  Amer- 
ica and  against  Germany,  this  average 
American  has  a  tendency  to  stamp  on 
his  hat  and  cry,  "This  man  is  a  damned 
traitor!" 

That  assumption  is  in  nine  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  cases  out 


14    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

of  ten  thousand  absurd.  Americans 
of  German  origin,  with  the  exception 
of  a  dastardly  few,  are  absolutely 
loyal  to  the  government  of  the  United 
States.  They  consider  themselves 
Americans  and  nothing  but  Americans. 
Some  of  them  take  pride  in  believing 
that  they  are  the  only  true  Americans 
remaining.  All  others,  they  declare, 
have  yielded  themselves,  body  and 
soul,  to  England. 

To  them,  America's  entrance  into 
the  War  is,  in  a  sense,  a  soul's  tragedy. 
To  them,  America  is  merely  the  dupe 
of  England,  bound  to  her  inveterate 
enemy  by  links  of  gold  forged  by 
American  financiers  and  munition- 
makers.  America,  they  bitterly  com- 
plain, has  again  become  a  British 
colony. 

"You  ask  where  do  we  stand?"  they 
cry.  "Are  we  not  giving  our  sons  to 
the  army  and  navy,  our  hard-earned 
money  to  the  Red  Cross,  the  Y.  M.  C. 
A.,  the  Liberty  Loans?  What  more  do 
you  v/ant  of  us?  Do  you  expect  us 
to  shout  with  enthusiasm  for  a  war 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     15 

into  which  we  believe  America  should 
never  have  entered?  We  are  doing 
our  share.  We  are  doing  more 
than  many  Americans  whose  fore- 
fathers came  over  in  the  Mayflower. 
Let  America  accept  that  and  be 
satisfied  and  not  ask  us  to  stand  in  the 
streets  reviling  the  country  of  our 
fathers." 

There  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
Americans  of  German  origin  who  hold 
that  attitude.  They  are  loyal,  and 
they  give  what  they  are  able  to  give 
to  attest  their  loyalty,  but  their  heart 
is  not  in  their  gifts.  They  are  ag- 
grieved, they  are  embittered  with  the 
bitterness  of  the  man  who  feels,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  that  he  has  not  been  given 
a  "square  deal." 


Ill 

WHEREIN  does  the  American  of 
German  origin  believe  that  he 
has  been  unjustly  treated? 

Here,  in  brief,  are  his  grievances: 
He  believes  that  from  the  very  be- 
ginning of  the  Great  War,  the  attitude 
of  the  American  government  was  un- 
neutral favoring  the  Allies,  espe- 
cially England,  and  discriminating 
cruelly  against  Germany.  He  claims 
that  in  the  face  of  British  aggression 
our  government  was  weak,  while  in 
the  face  of  Germany's  most  moderate 
demands,  it  was  relentless  and  hard. 
It  protested  vociferously,  for  instance, 
against  Germany's  proclamation  of  a 
war  zone  about  the  British  Isles,  though 
it  had  remained  silent  when  England 
several  months  previously  had  issued 
a  similar  proclamation  concerning  the 
North  Sea.     It  insisted  on  hampering 

16 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     17 

the  activities  of  Germany's  submar- 
ines, he  claims,  but  accepted  meekly 
all  of  England's  Orders  in  Council  in 
regard  to  contraband,  the  blockade  and 
the  blacklisting  of  American  business 
houses.  English  mines,  he  contends, 
sank  as  many  American  ships  without 
warning  as  German  submarines.  But 
instead  of  protesting,  the  American 
government  surrendered  its  soul  into 
the  hands  of  the  British  Foreign  Office 
and  obediently  declared  war  against 
Germany. 

There,  briefly,  are  the  German- 
American's  grievances  against  the 
American  government.  Some  of  them 
are  fantastic,  some  have  a  measure  of 
truth  behind  them;  all  of  them  are 
sincere  and  deeply  felt.  None  of 
them  is  to  be  lightly  thrown  aside  by 
other  Americans,  as  inconsequential. 
No  belief,  however  mistaken,  is  in- 
consequential when  it  is  fervently  held 
and  passionately  defended  by  thou- 
sands or  hundreds  of  thousands  of  in- 
telligent individuals. 

But  these  are  not  all  of  the  griev- 


18     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

ances  which  have  temporarily  embit- 
tered the  American  of  German  origin. 
He  has  grievances  not  only  against 
the  American  government  but  also 
against  the  American  people,  espe- 
cially the  leaders  in  journalism,  busi- 
ness and  finance  who,  he  contends, 
persisted  in  the  most  unneutral  fashion 
in  discriminating  in  favor  of  England 
and  against  Germany.  He  believes, 
for  instance,  that  the  most  important 
newspapers  in  the  country  were  at  the 
opening  of  the  War  bought  with  cold 
cash  by  England  and  that  American 
editors  surrendered  themselves,  body 
and  brain,  to  the  dictation  of  the  Brit- 
ish Foreign  Office.  He  contends  that 
news  favorable  to  Germany  was  sup- 
pressed and  news  unfavorable  to  her 
cause  or  her  reputation  either  invented 
or  richly  colored.  The  whole  story 
of  German  atrocities,  he  believes,  is 
a  legend  created  by  mendacious  Brit- 
ish correspondents,  and  sent  forth  over 
neutral  countries  under  the  lustre  of 
Lord  Bryce's  honored  name  in  order 
to  persuade  neutral  opinion  that  the 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     19 

hitherto  gentle  and  peace-loving  Ger- 
man had  suddenly  become  a  raving 
barbarian. 

There  is  no  arguing  this  conviction 
with  the  German- American;  and  this 
is  not  the  place  to  cite  indisputable 
evidence  of  eye-witnesses.  Whether 
our  sympathies  have  in  the  past  been 
with  the  cause  of  the  Allies  or  the 
cause  of  Germany,  we  Americans  of 
German  origin  cannot  allow  ourselves 
to  revive  issues  which  as  far  as  our 
present  duty  is  concerned  are  dead  and 
buried  and  must  not  be  disinterred. 
At  this  time  it  is  important  only  to  cite 
them  in  order  to  set  before  other 
Americans  the  grievances  which  a 
large  majority  of  German-Americans 
held  and  in  part  still  hold  against  their 
government  and  their  fellow-citizens. 

The  German-American  believes  that 
the  majority  of  American  newspapers 
wilfully  misrepresented  Germany's 
aims  and  political  philosophy,  her  his- 
tory, her  form  of  government,  the  at- 
titude of  her  rulers  toward  the  com- 
mon people,  her  methods  of  warfare; 


20     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

inciting  America  to  hatred  of  Germany 
and  all  things  German  by  flaunting  in 
misleading  headlines  the  statements  of 
German  extremists  and  exaggerating 
beyond  all  reason  the  influence  of  cer- 
tain rabid  militarists  like  Bernhardi 
and  Treitschke  who,  he  declares,  were 
without  influence  in  Germany.  He  in- 
sists that  air  raids  over  defenceless 
towns  were  initiated  not  by  Germany 
but  by  France  in  an  attack  on  the  city 
of  Nuremberg  during  the  first  days 
of  August  1914;  and  not  even  the  evi- 
dence of  Nuremberg  newspapers  to 
the  contrary  will  in  this  matter  con- 
vince him  of  his  error. 

The  German-American  contends, 
furthermore,  that  American  bankers 
committed  a  series  of  unneutral  acts, 
in  contravention  of  international  law, 
in  loaning  large  sums  of  money  to  the 
Allies  during  the  years  before  America 
entered  the  War.  He  contends,  be- 
yond this,  that  the  traffic  with  the  Allies 
in  arms  and  ammunition  was  not  only 
inhuman  but  unneutral;  that  America, 
while  professing  neutrality  and  friend- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     21 

ship  for  Germany,  was  actually  doing 
her  utmost  to  help  defeat  Germany. 
He  believes  absolutely  that  without 
this  assistance  from  the  United  States, 
the  Allies  would  have  been  defeated  in 
1915. 

Here  again  are  questions  which  the 
march  of  events  have  relegated  to  the 
limbo  of  dead  issues.  There  is  no 
use  today  in  discussing  them,  in  point- 
ing out  that  Germany  herself  has  al- 
ways insisted  on  trafficking  in  muni- 
tions at  all  times  and  with  all  coun- 
tries; that  an  American  embargo  would 
have  created  a  precedent  which  might 
at  some  later  date  have  worked  to  our 
own  disaster;  that  Germany  herself 
jfloated  a  loan  in  the  United  States  early 
in  the  war  and  that  German  language 
newspapers  advised  their  readers  to 
invest  in  it.  We  Americans  of  Ger- 
man origin  are  seeking  here  not  to  ac- 
cuse any  of  our  fellow  citizens  of  Ger- 
man or  other  blood,  of  unreason,  of 
lack  of  logic.  War  is  not  a  matter  of 
reason;  it  is  a  matter  of  emotion.  No 
man  and  no  nation  can  fight  because 


22     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

cold  logic  tells  them  they  should. 
They  fight  because  in  certain  cases 
something  higher  than  reason  or  in 
other  cases  something  lower  than  rea- 
son tells  them  that  they  must.  War 
has  a  tendency  to  cloud  logic  always, 
because  it  inevitably  inflames  the  emo- 
tions, and  in  war  as  in  love,  the  heart 
has  a  way  of  playing  ducks  and  drakes 
with  the  intellect. 

To  ask  strict  logic  of  the  German- 
American  is  to  ask  more  than  the 
American  of  other  than  German  blood 
has  been  able  at  all  times  to  show.  It 
is  not  important  today  to  prove  or  dis- 
prove the  ability  of  the  German-Amer- 
ican under  stress  of  terrifying  events 
to  reason  clearly.  It  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  tremendously  important,  in  or- 
der that  his  fellow  citizens  of  other 
origins  may  understand  him  better 
than  they  do,  to  record  his  emotions. 

The  German-American  believes  that 
he  has  not  been  given  a  "square  deal." 
Government,  the  newspapers,  finance, 
big  business,  have  all,  he  contends, 
discriminated  wantonly  and  most  un- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     23 

justly  against  the  country  to  which  in 
time  of  her  peril  his  natural  affections 
turned.  This  hostility  toward  Ger- 
many as  a  nation,  fed  by  unjust  vilifi- 
cation, extended  itself,  he  contends, 
long  before  America  entered  the  War, 
to  hostility  to  all  things  German  in  the 
United  States.  Though  he  may  not  be 
able  to  produce  tangible  proofs,  he  be- 
lieves firmly  that,  fostered  by  British 
propaganda,  there  has  in  the  United 
States  long  been  under  way  a  deliber- 
ate persecution  of  Germans  and  Ger- 
manism, aimed  to  crush  out  what  he 
considers  the  liberalizing  influences  of 
Teutonic  ideas  with  "the  muckerdom 
of  English  puritanism."  He  consid- 
ers the  recent  attacks  on  the  German 
language  newspapers  and  on  the  teach- 
ing of  German  in  the  schools  as  a  part 
of  this  cold-blooded  and  narrow- 
minded  campaign;  a  malicious  and  un- 
patriotic endeavor  on  the  part  of  its 
promoters  to  take  advantage  of  the 
anti-German  passions  engendered  by 
the  War  to  annihilate  the  rights  and 
influence  of  the  most  solid  and  most 


24     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

loyal  element  in  the  American  people. 

Germany  and  the  German-Ameri- 
cans havCj  in  the  eyes  of  the  American 
of  German  origin  of  whom  we  speak, 
had  a  "raw  deal." 

What  answer  have  the  great  body 
of  Americans,  who  think  otherwise,  to 
give  him? 


IV 


THIS  is  no  time,  we  repeat,  for  any 
American  citizen  of  whatever 
birth  or  blood  to  attempt  to  justify  or 
refute  grievances  which  had  their 
origin  in  issues  which  today  are  as 
dead  as  Babylon  and  Heliopolis. 
These  things  belong  to  the  past,  to  those 
"mute,  inglorious"  years  whose  mem- 
ory we  trust  the  grand  sweep  of  this 
present  time  to  cover  with  charitable 
wings. 

The  American  government  and  that 
majority  of  the  American  people 
which  is  of  other  than  Teutonic  origin, 
in  those  years,  the  German-American 
believes,  committed  grievous  errors, 
acts  of  bitter  injustice,  sins  of  omis- 
sion and  commission  which  he  finds  it 
difficult  to  forgive.  We  have  recorded 
what  he  believes  those  errors  and  those 
acts  to  have  been. 

25 


26    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

They  belong  to  yesterday.  May 
they  rest  in  peace. 

It  is  now  only  fair,  however,  be- 
fore we  consign  these  also  to  the  grave, 
that  we  record  the  grievances  which 
Americans  of  other  stock  than  Ger- 
man held  and  to  some  extent  still 
hold  against  the  German-Americans. 
Whether  these  grievances  are  justified 
or  not,  a  statement  of  them  may  to  some 
extent  make  clear  to  German-Ameri- 
cans the  reason  why  the  rest  of  the 
American  people  now  go  to  them,  ask- 
ing, Where  do  you  stand? 

At  the  very  beginning  of  the  Great 
War,  a  week  before  the  first  gun  was 
fired  by  whatever  nation  did  fire  it, 
which  is  immaterial  here,  the  sense  of 
fair  play  of  the  American  people  was 
roused  by  Austria's  ultimatum  to 
Serbia.  The  American  people  were, 
as  a  whole,  ignorant  of  Balkan  issues. 
They  knew  nothing  of  the  rights  and 
wrongs  of  Austria  in  Serbia.  They 
saw  a  great  Power  threatening  a  weak 
people  and,  rightly  or  wrongly,  irre- 
spective of  whatever  the  underlying 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     27 

facts  may  have  been,  their  sympathies 
were     aroused     for    the     under-dog. 
When,  ten  days  later,  Germany  deliv- 
ered  what    seemed   to    Americans    a 
brutal  ultimatum  of  her  own  to  another 
weak  people,  and  like  Serbia,  Belgium, 
wisely  or  unwisely,   rose  up  with  a 
shout  to  repel  the  invader,  the  great 
mass  of  the  American  people  jumped 
with  their  usual  speed  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  Teutonic  Powers  were  black- 
guards and  bullies,  and  France,  Eng- 
land, Belgium,  Serbia  and  even  im- 
perial Russia  were  saintly  defenders 
of  the  oppressed.     Whether  this  con- 
clusion was  or  was  not,  in  the  light 
of  later  events,   justified   is  not  the 
point  at  issue.     The  point  is  that  in 
the  very  first  week  of  the  War,  a  cer- 
tain firm  conviction  took  hold  of  a 
great  number  of  Americans,  especially 
leaders      of      opinion.     Rightly      or 
wrongly,  these  Americans  became  con- 
vinced thus  at  the  very  outset  that  the 
Allies   were   defending  their  hearths 
and  homes  against  a  modern  species  of 
Robber   Baron.     Statements   of  Ger- 


28    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

many's  intellectual  leaders  convinced 
them,  furthermore,  that  this  War  was 
not  a  sudden,  reckless,  unreasoning  ex- 
cursion, but  the  sober  result  of  a  po- 
litical philosophy  which  was  as  far  re- 
moved as  A  is  from  Z  from  the  politi- 
cal philosophy  on  which  American 
institutions  stand.  Gradually,  they 
came  to  believe  that  the  success  of  Ger- 
many in  this  War  would  almost  auto- 
matically involve  the  downfall  of  the 
democratic  ideal.  Believing  this, 
they  began  to  preach  the  crusade 
against  the  German  idea.  They 
preached  loud  and  they  preached  long. 
Meanwhile,  German  statesmanship 
seemed  to  justify  their  preachments. 
The  submarine  campaign  brought  al- 
most daily  evidence  to  prove  their 
seemingly  most  reckless  statements 
concerning  the  "German  menace." 
They  preached  successfully.  We  are 
embarked  on  the  crusade. 

Whether  these  Americans  were 
right  or  whether  they  were  wrong  in 
believing  that  Germany  threatened  the 
very  soul  of  America,  that  thing  they 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     29 

did  believe.  Germany's  point  of  view 
and  the  methods  with  which  German 
leaders  sought  to  enforce  it  seemed 
to  them  barbaric  and  subversive  of  all 
the  laboriously  created  traditions  of 
humanity  and  civilization. 

Burning  with  this  conviction,  they 
could  not  understand  how  any  man 
who  had  lived  in  America  and  breathed 
the  clear  air  of  democratic  institutions 
and  ideals,  could,  for  an  instant,  de- 
fend Germany  or  regard  with  anything 
except  horror  the  possibility  of  a  Ger- 
man victory. 

The  majority  of  the  German-Ameri- 
cans, meanwhile,  seeing  the  War  from 
a  different  angle  and  believing,  not 
unnaturally,  the  Gernian  version  of 
the  War's  origin  and  its  conduct  by 
the  different  nations  party  to  it,  en- 
thusiastically supported  Germany  and 
all  its  works. 

This  is  the  first  grievance  of  the 
average  American  against  the  Amer- 
ican of  German  blood,  that  he, 
a  free  citizen  of  the  Republic,  should 
have  identified  himself  as  wholeheart- 


30     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

edly  as  he  did  with  the  cause  of  a 
government  based  on  principles  funda- 
mentally opposed  to  those  on  which 
the  United  States  were  founded.  The 
German-American,  he  complains,  ac- 
cepted Germany's  aims,  methods,  pre- 
tensions, self-justifications  and  self- 
glorifications  without  critical  exami- 
nation, at  Germany's  own  valuation. 
In  a  sense  he  was  more  pro-German 
than  the  Chancellor  himself,  for  the 
Chancellor  had  admitted  that  in  in- 
vading Belgium  Germany  had  done 
a  great  wrong;  but  this  the  German- 
American  never  would  admit.  He 
had  nothing  but  praise  for  Germany's 
leaders;  nothing  but  praise  for  every 
deed  they  did  and  every  word  that 
came  out  of  their  mouths.  Their  of- 
ficial bulletins  and  notes,  of  which  in 
the  course  of  time  the  United  States 
received  their  share,  he  regarded  as 
rather  more  trustworthy  than  the 
Gospel. 

The  average  American  resented  the 
unquestioning  allegiance  which  dur- 
ing the  first  years  of  the  War  the  Ger- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     31 

man-American  appeared  to  be  show- 
ing to  the  Kaiser  and  all  that  the 
Kaiser  typified.  He  began  to  resent 
it  more  intensely  when  the  clash  of 
Germany's  "military  necessity"  and 
America's  rights  as  a  nation  brought 
the  two  countries  sharply  face  to  face, 
and  the  German-American  in  conse- 
quent arguments  almost  invariably 
took  the  German  side. 

Examined  at  a  distance,  in  the 
cooler  mood  of  the  historian  dissect- 
ing the  corpse  of  a  dead  issue,  the 
average  American,  whose  mental  atti- 
tude we  are  here  attempting  to  make 
clear  to  his  fellow-citizen  of  German 
origin,  might  today  admit  that  his  re- 
sentment against  his  fervently  pro- 
German  neighbor  did  not  fully  take 
into  account  human  nature  or  give  full 
credit  to  the  German- American  for  the 
exhibition  of  certain  lovable,  Ameri- 
can qualities  which  largely  determined 
this  average  American's  own  attitude 
toward  the  War,  and  which,  in  himself, 
he  considered  rather  praiseworthy. 

The  German-American,  it  appears. 


32    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

also  has  a  keen  sense  of  fair  play. 
The  German-American  also  has  a 
natural  tenderness  for  the  under-dog. 
The  American  of  English  or  French 
stock,  with  his  eyes  on  the  situation  in 
Europe,  saw  Belgium,  Serbia  and 
France  as  the  oppressed  nations;  the 
German-American,  with  his  eyes 
mainly  on  the  situation  in  the  United 
States,  considered  Germany  as  the 
poor,  abused  brother.  Both  were  in- 
tolerant; both,  as  a  rule,  were  supplied 
only  scantily  with  a  knowledge  of  ac- 
tual conditions  in  any  of  the  warring 
countries,  with  a  background  of  his- 
tory or  with  a  firm  grasp  of  the  funda- 
mental issues;  both,  in  the  heat  and 
exigency  of  debate,  presented  the  situ- 
ation in  extreme  black  and  white  with 
no  shading.  England  was  the  devil 
with  hoofs  and  a  spiked  tail,  or  Ger- 
many was  the  devil,  similarly  adorned. 
Neither  gave  consideration  to  the  possi- 
bility that  though  one  side  might  be 
predominantly  right,  the  other  side 
need  not  therefore  be  altogether  satan- 
ically    wrong.     There    was    warrant 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     33 

enough  in  history  to  withhold  from 
either  set  of  belligerents  the  immedi- 
ate award  of  harp,  halo  and  wings. 

The  German-American  resented  bit- 
terly the  sanctification  of  all  things  per- 
taining to  the  Allies ;  he  resented  espe- 
cially what  seemed  to  him  a  very  orgy 
of  anglomania.  The  American  of 
different  origin,  on  the  other  hand,  re- 
sented quite  as  bitterly  the  German- 
American's  assumption  that  Germany 
was  more  or  less  the  perfect  nation, 
mentally,  morally,  politically,  philo- 
sophically and  culturally.  He  re- 
sented such  actual  outbursts  as  this 
made  in  1916:  "I  tell  you,  Germany 
is  the  one  nation  whose  hands  at  the 
end  of  this  War  will  be  seen  to  be 
absolutely,  spotlessly  clean!  I  tell 
you,  Germany  today  stands  so  high  in 
exalted,  moral  eminence,  that  no  other 
nation  on  earth  is  fit  to  be  named  in 
the  same  breath  with  her — "  and  so 
forth  and  so  on. 

The  average  American,  whose  point 
of  view  we  are  here  attempting  to  lay 
bare,  resented  what  seemed  to  him  the 


34    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

German-American's  extreme  partisan- 
ship from  the  very  beginning  of  the 
Great  War;  he  resented  it  with  in- 
creasing bitterness  when  Germany  be- 
gan not  only  to  interfere  with  Amer- 
ican rights  and  destroy  American  prop- 
erty but  also,  rather  more  ruthlessly 
than  seemed  necessary,  began  to  take 
American  lives.  The  German-Ameri- 
can's contention  that  England  had  been 
the  first  and  was  still  the  most  flagrant 
offender  against  international  mari- 
time law  and  the  neutrality  of  the 
United  States  passed  over  his  head  and 
left  about  as  much  impression  there  as 
a  flock  of  swallows  flying  south.  Law 
or  no  law,  the  average  American  felt 
instinctively  and  rightly  that  though 
stealing — granting  the  German-Amer- 
ican's contention  that  it  was  stealing — 
may  be  reprehensible,  it  is  not  to  be 
compared  as  a  crime,  with  murder. 
Locked  in  a  room  with  a  man  who 
wanted  his  life  and  another  man  who 
wanted  only  his  property,  it  was 
natural  common  sense  for  the  average 
American  with  whom  we  are  dealing  to 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     35 

whisper  to  the  latter,  "Here's  my 
pocket-book.  If  you  think  you  need 
it  to  deal  properly  with  that  dangerous 
fellow  over  there,  all  right  and  bless 
you.  I'll  send  you  a  bill — and  don't 
you  forget  it — but  I  won't  send  it  until 
you're  through  fighting.  Meanwhile, 
I'd  be  obliged  if  you'd  kindly  stand 
between  me  and  that  fellow's  gun." 

It  was  a  mistake,  perhaps,  that 
Americans  who  believed  that  the  Allies 
were  right  and  that  Germany  was 
wrong,  spoke  as  though  America  were 
really  neutral.  On  the  part  of  the 
government,  perhaps,  it  was  a  neces- 
sary diplomatic  fiction.  For,  of 
course,  America  was  not  neutral,  for 
her  neutrality  was,  especially  toward 
England,  of  that  benevolent  variety 
which  only  the  eye  of  an  expert  can 
tell  from  frank  partisanship.  The 
German-American  damned  America's 
attitude  as  hypocritical;  the  American 
of  other  leanings  accepted  it  as,  for 
the  moment,  inevitable  and  as  reason- 
ably just. 

The    diplomatic    conflict    between 


36    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

Germany  and  the  United  States,  mean- 
while, became  more  and  more  acute 
and  the  opinion  among  American  citi- 
zens on  both  sides  became  increasingly- 
violent.  The  average  American  re- 
sented and  resents  today  the  fact  that 
in  every  fresh  dispute  the  German- 
American  took  Germany's  side,  ac- 
cepted as  indisputable  Germany's  ar- 
guments, and  treated  with  scorn,  deri- 
sion and  anger  the  words  and  the  ac- 
tions of  America's  official  and  unoffi- 
cial leaders  in  defence  of  American 
rights  and  American  lives.  He  re- 
sented with  growing  mistrust  the  atti- 
tude of  German  language  newspapers 
all  over  the  country  which  poured  over 
the  heads  of  tlie  President  of  the  United 
States  and  all  others  who  spoke  openly 
and  hotly  concerning  what  seemed  to 
them  wanton  and  inhuman  aggression, 
the  vials  of  bitterest  contempt  and  de- 
nunciation; and  which,  at  the  same 
time,  had  no  word  of  censure  for  Ger- 
many or  any  of  its  leaders  except  those 
who,  like  Liebknecht,  represented  in 
Germany  the  democratic  point  of  view. 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     37 

For  those  Germans  and  for  those  only- 
it  had  denunciation  or  ridicule. 

Is  the  American  of  other  blood  than 
German  altogether  to  be  blamed  if,  re- 
membering those  things,  he  asks  the 
German-American  today,  Where  do 
you  stand? 


SURELY,  he  has  a  right  to  ask  it, 
for  during  the  past  three  years, 
the  German-Americans  of  position  and 
influence  who  represent  the  unques- 
tionably loyal  ma  3rity  of  Americans 
of  German  origir  have  been  silent, 
driven  from  publit  life  to  the  obscur- 
ity and  protection  ^  »f  their  firesides  by 
what  seemed  to  them  the  intolerance  of 
Americans  who  were  of  other  blood 
than  theirs,  leaving  the  leadership  of 
German-Americans  to  editors  and 
others  whose  sympathies  were  undis- 
guisedly  and  above  all  with  Germany. 
Among  these  were  American  citizens 
of  German  blood  or  birth  who,  as  edi- 
tors of  German  language  newspapers, 
saw  in  the  War  a  heaven-sent  opportu- 
nity to  restore  the  dwindling  prestige, 
circulation  and  advertising  of  their 
newspapers;  and  certain  other  editors 

38 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     39 

of  newspapers  and  periodicals  printed 
in  English  who,  for  dollars  or  noto- 
riety or  both,  played  on  the  prejudices 
of  the  German-Americans.  In  the 
same  class  were  politicians  who  hun- 
gered for  that  elusive  and  undeliver- 
able  quantity,  the  "German  vote";  a 
few  small  but  in  certain  German  social 
circles  influential  folk  who  had  been 
dined  and  wined  by  the  Kaiser;  a  very 
much  larger  group  who  had  business 
interests  in  Germany  which  would  suf- 
fer in  case  of  a  German  defeat;  and  a 
vast  number  of  good  but  unimagina- 
tive parsons,  school-teachers  and  oth- 
ers who  failed  to  comprehend  the 
meaning  of  the  lives  of  men  like  Carl 
Schurz  and  Abraham  Jakobi  in  1848 
and  Liebknecht  and  Nicolay  in 
1917,  which  is,  that  a  man  may  love 
German  hills  and  woods  and  rivers 
and  castles  and  fairies,  German 
women  and  German  song,  and  still  be 
able  and  willing  to  oppose  with  heart 
and  brain  and  hand  a  system  of  which 
the  Kaiser  is  the  glittering  symbol. 
Those  men  were,  with  a  few  excep- 


40    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

tions,  good  people,  loyal  to  the  best 
they  knew,  but  they  were  not  good 
leaders.  They  were  will-o'-the-wisps 
beckoning  their  fellows  into  perilous 
marshes. 

There  were  other  leaders,  clear- 
eyed,  fully  conscious  whither  they 
were  leading,  responsible;  but  re- 
sponsible neither  to  the  American  gov- 
ernment, the  American  people  nor  to 
a  conscience  nurtured  on  American 
ideals.  They  were  German  citizens, 
enjoying  the  hospitality  of  the  United 
States,  employes  in  part  of  the  German 
government,  German  professors,  re- 
sponsible only  to  the  government  which 
employed  them  and  to  a  conscience, 
seeing  rights  and  wrongs  from  the 
angle  of  a  Prussian  Ministry  of  Edu- 
cation. 

There  were  still  other  leaders,  re- 
sponsible, and  by  reason  of  their  posi- 
tion doubly  obligated  to  steer  the 
opinions  and  emotions  of  their  fellow- 
Americans  of  German  origin  wisely 
and  carefully  among  the  rocks  and 
shoals  that  lay  about  them;  not  to  in- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     41 

fluence  their  passions  but  to  call  upon 
their  reason;  to  consider  not  Ger- 
many and  Germany's  rights  and 
wrongs  so  much  as  America's  difficult 
international  position  and  their  own 
place  in  a  land  which,  however  unjust 
it  might  for  the  moment  appear  to  the 
cause  which  was  naturally  close  to 
their  hearts,  had,  after  all,  hospitably 
received  them  and  given  them  a  free- 
dom of  one  sort  or  another  which  they 
had  not  found  in  the  land  they  had 
left.  These  leaders  were  the  official 
heads  of  the  thousands  of  German- 
American  social,  literary  and  athletic 
clubs  scattered  over  the  country,  and  of 
the  National  German-American  Al- 
liance, an  organization  with  branches 
in  almost  every  State,  whose  avowed 
purpose  is  the  extension  in  the  United 
States  of  German  culture  and  the  Ger- 
man language.  These  leaders  have 
unquestionable  power  and  they  exer- 
cised it  by  means  of  addresses  at  fre- 
quent conventions  and  mass  meetings 
and  by  other  public  statements,  which 
could  not  help  having  their  effect  on 


42     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  German-Americans  who  were  dis- 
turbed and  puzzled  to  know  exactly 
where  they  belonged. 

These  hundreds  of  thousands  were 
no  different  from  the  majority  of  their 
fellow  citizens  of  other  stock  than 
German  insofar  as  they  had  never  been 
taught  to  think  deeply  on  political 
problems  and  knew  next  to  nothing  of 
international  affairs.  They  wanted 
some  one  to  tell  them  what  attitude 
they,  as  German-Americans,  must  in 
good  conscience  take  in  reference  to 
the  War  in  Europe  and  to  the  relations 
between  Germany  and  the  United 
States.     They  wanted  leadership. 

And  they  got  it. 

It  is  the  most  obvious  of  platitudes 
that  when  the  wise  men  of  a  nation 
choose  to  cling  to  the  seclusion  and 
peace  of  their  own  hearthstones,  the 
government  is  run  by  knaves  or  fools. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  make  subtle 
discriminations  concerning  the  char- 
acter, the  ability  and  the  vision  of 
the  men  who  took  it  upon  themselves 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     43 

to  tell  Americans  of  German  origin 
that  their  future  prestige  and  happi- 
ness depended  on  a  German  victory. 
They  were  demagogues,  German- 
American  "leaders"  by  profession, 
who  had  been  so  busy  evolving  schemes 
and  ever  new  schemes  for  building  up 
German  influence  in  the  United  States 
(which  meant  incidentally  their  own 
personal  influence)  that  they  had  never 
really  acquainted  themselves  with 
those  ideals  of  life  and  government 
which  make  up  the  American  concep- 
tion of  democracy.  Those  men  are 
not  to  be  blamed.  They  led,  it  is 
only  fair  to  believe,  as  their  individual 
consciences  dictated. 

The  men  who  are  really  to  be 
blamed,  the  men  who  arfe  really  culpa- 
ble of  the  grave  misunderstanding 
which  exists  today  between  the  Ameri- 
can of  German  origin  and  his  fellow- 
citizen  of  other  stock,  are  those  men 
of  German  blood  and  wide  reputation 
who  have  in  the  past,  in  countless  ways, 
in  our  civic  and  national  life,  shown 
their  ability  as  leaders,  but  who  in 


44    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

this  crisis  played  the  sullen  Achilles, 
sulking  in  their  tents  because  they  con- 
sidered themselves  ill-used.  They  are 
men  of  education,  in  part  they  are  men 
of  learning,  in  part  they  are  men  of 
high  social  position,  men  without  ques- 
tion whose  words  would  carry  weight 
if  they  cared  to  speak  them. 

But  they  did  not  care  to  speak. 
Not  one  of  them  raised  his  voice 
against  the  pompous  drivel  of  the 
German-American  Alliance  orators. 
These  cultivated  gentlemen  of  German 
origin  who  protested  loudly  that  they 
were  Americans  and  nothing  but 
Americans,  spoke  no  word  to  refute 
the  statement  of  the  president  of  the 
Alliance,  "We  have  long  suffered  the 
preachment  that  you  Germans  must 
allow  yourselves  to  be  assimilated, 
'you  must  merge  in  the  American  peo- 
ple' ;  but  no  one  will  ever  find  us  pre- 
pared to  descend  to  an  inferior  culture. 
No!  We  have  made  it  our  aim  to  ele- 
vate the  others  to  our  level."  That 
piece  of  pernicious  buncombe  passed 
unchallenged  by  the  German-Ameri- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     45 

cans  of  intelligence  and  influence.  If 
they  realized  at  all  its  inevitably 
dangerous  effect  on  the  average  Amer- 
ican they  did  not  bother  to  combat  it. 
Parlor  politicians,  parlor  strategists, 
parlor  Germans  and  parlor  Ameri- 
cans, they  preferred  to  stay  home  and 
grumble  at  everything  and  everybody 
except  the  Kaiser. 

That  does  not  mean  that  they  are  or 
that  they  were  actually  disloyal  to  the 
United  States.  But  it  does  mean  that 
they  were,  and  in  part  still  are,  emas- 
culated arm-chair  kickers,  smug  as 
eunuchs  in  a  harem  in  their  aloofness 
to  the  passions  of  men ;  uninspired  and 
uninspiring  neutrals,  who  love  Amer- 
ica a  little  but  not  enough  to  use  the 
influence  they  possess  to  help  her,  and 
who  love  Germany  a  little,  but  not 
enough  to  give  them  a  certain  feeling 
of  responsibility  for  their  fellow  citi- 
zens of  German  origin. 

And  there  we  come  to  the  crux  of 
the  matter  of  German-American  lead- 
ership in  this  country.  The  men  of 
education,  ability  and  position  among 


46    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

Americans  of  German  origin  consti- 
tute to  a  large  extent  a  self-con- 
scious and  exclusive  caste,  a  social 
Four  Hundred,  which  has  no  more  use 
for  Hans,  Fritz,  Ludwig  and  Heinrich, 
who  meet  at  their  Skatclubs  and  bowl- 
ing alleys,  than  any  other  snob  has  for 
any  other  "social  inferior."  They 
have  their  own  luxurious  clubs  and 
they  would  no  more  think  of  taking 
part  in  the  activities  of  the  societies 
to  which  Heinrich  belongs  than  a  Fifth 
Avenue  dandy  would  think  of  joining 
actively  in  the  work  of  his  district  po- 
litical organization. 

"Where  do  you  stand?"  asks  the 
American  of  other  than  German  origin. 

"You  have  no  business  to  ask  me 
that,"  responds  this  German-American. 
"I  am  an  American  citizen.  It  is  an 
insult  to  question  my  loyalty,"  and  so 
forth  and  so  on. 

"But,"  persists  the  other,  "the  Ger- 
man-American Alliance  and  similar 
organizations,  professing  to  speak  with 
authority  for  the  Americans  of  German 
blood  in  the  United  States,  have  in  the 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?    47 

past  three  years  issued  statements  so 
violently  pro-German  that  the  question 
is  really  a  perfectly  natural  and  legiti- 
mate one  to  ask." 

"The  German- American  Alliance!" 
exclaims  the  first  in  derision.  "You 
don't  think  I'd  have  anything  to  do  with 
that  aggregation  of  singers  and  turn- 
ers and  ten-pin  experts?  You  forget. 
I  am  not  a  German-American.  I  am 
not  hyphenated  in  any  way.  I  am  an 
American  and  nothing  but  an  Amer- 
ican." 

That  protestation  is  in  itself,  as  far 
as  it  goes,  admirable.  But  it  does  not 
go  very  far.  In  its  attitude  toward 
America  it  is  about  as  convincing  as 
any  other  piece  of  stump  eloquence; 
in  its  attitude  toward  the  German  blood 
which  flows  in  our  veins,  whether  we 
like  it  or  not  (and  some  of  us  do  like 
it  and  still  dare  to  be  proud  of  it),  it 
is  about  as  loyal  as  the  disciple  who 
cried  with  an  oath,  "I  do  not  know  the 
man."  Indeed,  the  men  who  make  it, 
while,  in  their  unwillingness  to  criti- 
cize anything  pertaining  to  Germany, 


48    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

pretending  to  be  loyal  to  their  Ger- 
man origin,  are  actually  disloyal  to 
it  inasmuch  as  they  refuse  to  use  the 
influence  which  that  very  origin  may 
at  this  time  give  them  with  their  fel- 
low citizens  of  like  origin. 

The  hyphen  is  not  in  itself  a  dis- 
grace. In  its  ordinary  significance  it 
means  only  that  our  fathers,  instead  of 
coming  to  America  in  the  Mayflower 
in  Sixteen  Twenty  came  in  the  Bre- 
men or  the  Borussia  in  the  Eighteen 
Fifties  or  the  Werra  or  the  Lahn  in 
the  Eighteen  Nineties.  The  hyphen 
is  a  disgrace  only  when  it  signifies 
divided  allegiance.  For  a  certain 
type  of  German-American  vociferously 
to  deny  his  origin  blinks  the  fact  that 
German  blood  is  German  blood.  It 
blinks  the  further  fact  that  the  speaker 
thus  vigorously  denying  his  German- 
Americanism  is  probably  himself  a 
member  of  a  German  club  of  one 
exclusive  sort  or  another.  It  blinks 
still  further  the  fact  that,  whether  we 
like  it  or  not,  a  good  many  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  Americans,  who  freely 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     49 

admit  their  German  origin,  have  or- 
ganized themselves  into  countless  sing- 
ing societies  and  other  social,  athletic 
and  literary  clubs  having  a  wide  influ- 
ence; and  it  leaves  these  hundreds  of 
thousands  to  the  tender  mercies  of  any 
ambitious  and  clever  demagogue  who 
takes  it  into  his  head  to  lead  them 
astray. 

In  recording  the  grievances  which 
the  American  of  other  than  German 
stock  has  held  and  in  part  still  holds 
against  his  German-American  fellow 
citizens,  it  is  highly  important  to  con- 
sider the  consequence  on  public  opin- 
ion in  America  of  the  inept  leadership 
which  was  all  that  the  snobbish  or  sul- 
len indifference  of  the  men  who  might 
have  led  wisely  allowed  the  German- 
Americans  to  have. 

For  two  years  before  America  de- 
clared war  on  Germany,  there  was,  we 
well  remember,  a  long  epistolary  bat- 
tle between  President  Wilson  and  the 
German  Foreign  Office.  The  average 
American    was    intensely    interested. 


50    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

during  that  period,  in  what  the  Ameri- 
can of  German  origin  thought  of  the 
whole  business.  He  recognized  that 
the  German-American  had  no  easy 
choice  to  make.  He  recognized,  fur- 
thermore, that  on  the  choice  the  Ger- 
man-American did  make  might  rest  the 
future  unity  of  the  Republic.  He 
naturally  hoped  that,  whatever  might 
be  the  exact  attitude  which  the  Ger- 
man-American would  take,  it  would  be 
an  attitude  based  on  conclusions 
freshly  and  discriminatingly  reasoned 
from  premises  as  strictly  American  as 
the  inevitable  intrusion  of  certain 
natural  sentiments  would  permit. 

But  the  "leaders"  of  the  German- 
Americans  in  newspaper  offices  and  on 
executive  committees  were,  thanks  to 
the  indifference  of  the  peeved  Achil- 
leses,  on  the  whole  not  of  the  cali- 
bre carefully  to  examine  and  judge 
on  its  own  merits  each  new  act,  demand 
or  justification  of  the  German  govern- 
ment. Under  ordinary  circumstances 
it  is  difficult  enough  calmly  to  sift  evi- 
dence against  your  own  flesh  and  blood 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     51 

or  to  weigh  with  cool  discrimination 
the  defence  of  a  brother,  supposed  to 
be  a  self-respecting  moral  citizen  and 
now  charged  of  a  sudden  with  every 
crime  on  the  calendar  beginning  with 
murder  and  ending  with  God  knows 
what.  Surrounded  and  harassed  as 
they  felt  by  what  appeared  to  them  un- 
just and  brutal  denunciation  of  Ger- 
many and  all  things  German,  these 
"leaders"  seem  to  have  surrendered 
their  prerogative  of  individual  judg- 
ment, then  and  there,  and  decided  to 
eat — neck,  feet  and  feathers — every 
bird  the  German  government  cared  to 
set  before  them. 

In  so  surrendering  their  right  and 
their  duty  of  judicial  criticism,  these 
so-called  "leaders"  lost  utterly  their 
opportunity  to  temper  the  growing  in- 
dignation of  Americans  toward  Ger- 
many. They  os^erplayed  their  game 
at  the  very  beginning.  They  whistled 
Germany's  tune  to  the  last  sharp  and 
the  last  flat.  They  consequently  be- 
came not  a  force  but  merely  an  echo; 
an  echo  of  a  voice,  moreover,  which 


52    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

the  average  American  found  extremely 
discordant.  When,  therefore,  they 
cried  for  an  embargo  on  arms  or 
against  the  sailing  of  Americans  on 
English  ships,  insisting  that  only 
American  needs  and  only  American 
ideals  underlay  their  demands,  Amer- 
icans of  other  stock  merely  shrugged 
their  shoulders  and  said,  "This  is 
damn  hypocrisy!  They  want  it  be- 
cause Germany  wants  it.  They  can 
go  plumb  to  the  devil!" 

From  first  to  last,  the  men  w^ho  set 
themselves  up  as  leaders  and  mould- 
ers of  opinion  among  German-Ameri- 
cans were  indistinguishable  in  their 
arguments  from  similar  leaders  in  Ger- 
many itself.  The  great  body  of  Amer- 
icans of  German  origin,  anxious  to  be 
shown  where  amid  the  confusion  of 
many  tongues  lay  the  truth  and  their 
own  highest  duty,  accepted  the  state- 
ments of  their  leaders  with  a  naive 
docility  for  which  we  who  are  of  Ger- 
man blood  are  not  unjustly  said  to  be 
famous;  and  became  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  individual  phonograph  rec- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     53 

ords,  giving  out  here,  there  and  every- 
where the  siren-music  of  the  German 
Foreign  Office. 

From  Maine  to  California,  from 
Oregon  to  Texas,  from  Porto  Rico  to 
the  Philippines,  we  have  made  that 
music  heard. 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  that  today  men 
are  asking  of  us,  Where  do  you  stand? 


VI 


IT  is  unfortunate,  beyond  words,  that 
the  emotional  rather  than  intellec- 
tual leadership  which  in  this  crisis 
guided  the  destinies  of  German- Ameri- 
cans, should  have  held  constantly  be- 
fore the  rank  and  file  the  wrongs  and 
the  desires  of  Germany  rather  than 
the  rights  and  the  needs  of  the  United 
States.  The  German-American  was 
led  not  only  to  conceive  a  high  admira- 
tion for  Germany,  but  at  the  same  time 
a  sharp  contempt  for  the  country  of 
which  he  was  a  citizen.  The  Ameri- 
can of  other  origin,  meanwhile,  made 
up  his  mind  that  a  man  who  appeared 
to  love  Germany  so  much  and  America 
so  little,  was  open  to  suspicion  of  dis- 
loyalty. 

He  found  in  the  course  of  time  cer- 
tain evidence  which  seemed  to  confirm 

his  suspicions. 

54 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     55 

The  German-Americans,  he  fomid, 
while  expressing  through  their  leaders 
the  hottest  indignation  at  every  in- 
fringement of  what  they  conceived  to 
be  Germany's  rights,  by  America  and 
the  Allies,  were  so  far  from  indignant 
at  the  infringement  of  America's  rights 
by  Germany  as  actually  to  demand 
the  abject  cession  of  those  rights. 
He  found,  furthermore,  that  the  Ger- 
man-Americans, while  exulting  in  the 
"martial  spirit"  of  their  mother  coun- 
try, were  preaching  the  most  trusting 
and  guileless  pacifism  in  this.  He 
found  that  they  regarded  with  con- 
tempt any  suggestion  of  a  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  German  government  which 
might  end  in  the  overthrow  of  the  Ger- 
man "stand-patters,"  the  Junkers; 
even  while  they  were  fomenting  class 
hatred  in  this  country  and  in  count- 
less ways  saying  and  suggesting  that 
capitalism  was  the  root  of  America's 
anti-Germanism.  He  found  that  Ger- 
man diplomats  or  secret  agents, 
caught  red-handed  in  some  character- 
istic enterprise,  were  seldom  censured, 


56    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

and  then  only  mildly,  not  so  much  be- 
cause of  their  crimes,  it  seemed,  but 
because  they  had  allowed  themselves 
to  be  caught.  Americans  who  spoke 
with  fervor  and  indignation  for  the  de- 
fence of  American  rights  on  sea  and 
land  were,  he  found,  on  the  other 
hand,  excoriated  as  disturbers  of  the 
peace. 

The  American  of  other  stock  than 
German,  of  whom  we  here  speak,  came 
to  the  only  conclusion  humanly  possi- 
ble under  the  circumstances.  He  de- 
cided that  the  German-American  was 
a  dangerous  fellow  and  had  better  be 
watched. 


VII 

TTERE  then  we  have  set  down  the 
-L  i-  grievances  which  Americans  of 
German  origin  held  and  in  part  still 
hold  against  the  American  government 
and  the  American  people,  and  against 
them  we  have  enumerated  the  causes 
of  the  mistrust  and  ill-feeling  which 
has  set  at  variance  with  their  German- 
American  fellows  a  large  section  of 
Americans  of  other  birth  or  blood. 
Some  of  us  on  one  side,  some  on  an- 
other felt  keenly  and  still  feel  keenly 
what  we  conceive  to  be  the  injustice, 
the  lack  of  understanding,  the  blind 
partisanship  of  those  on  the  other  side. 
Some  of  us  may  not  be  able  ever  quite 
to  forget  the  bitterness  of  these  three 
years  now  past. 

But  those  years  are  past,  that  period 
is  at  an  end.  We  have  entered  upon 
a  new  stage  with  innumerable  prob- 

57 


58     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

lems  of  its  own  for  both  the  American 
of  German  origin  and  the  American  of 
so-called  native  stock,  to  face  singly 
and  together.  They  are  grave  prob- 
lems, but  they  are  not  the  problems  of 
those  three  years  of  our  inglorious 
"neutrality."  Those  are  behind  us, 
those  are  dead,  waiting  only  for  us  who 
contended  over  them  once,  to  bury 
them,  shake  hands  and  proceed  to- 
gether to  a  contest  of  infinitely  greater 
import  in  which  we  are  privileged  to 
fight  not  against  each  other  but  side 
by  side. 

No  American  of  whatever  origin  is 
worthy  of  the  name  who  today  seeks 
to  cloud  the  vision  of  the  American 
people  and  to  hamper  the  fighting 
strength  of  the  American  government 
by  keeping  alive  through  his  silence 
or  his  speech  the  bitternesses  and  sus- 
picions engendered  during  those  years 
now  happily  behind  us.  The  Ameri- 
can of  German  origin  who  keeps  his 
grievances  warm;  the  American  of 
other  origin  who,  on  the  evidence  of  in- 
discretions committed  during  a  period 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?    59 

when  public  opinion  among  all  sec- 
tions of  the  American  people  was  curi- 
ously adrift,  holds  today  his  mistrust, 
— ^these  are  equally  culpable  and  de- 
serve equally  the  sharp  condemnation 
of  all  Americans  whose  loyalty  is  more 
than  a  phrase  and  whose  patriotism  is 
more  than  shouting. 

Never  in  the  history  of  our  country 
which  has  known  civil  strife  of  the 
bitterest  kind,  has  it  been  more  neces- 
sary for  the  word,  ''Come,  let  us  rea- 
son together/'  to  be  spoken  by  the  men 
of  force  and  ideals  on  both  sides  of 
the  unhappy  controversy.  Certainly 
our  own  future  domestic  peace  and 
happiness,  and  not  impossibly  the  fu- 
ture peace  and  stability  of  the  world 
may  depend  on  the  high-spirited  unan- 
imity with  which  we  Americans  face 
the  task  that  has  been  set  before  us. 

In  friendliness,  in  mutual  trust,  in 
the  common  hope  of  true  understand- 
ing and  co-operation,  Come,  let  us  rea- 
son together. 


VIII 

THE  Americans  of  German  origin 
have,  with  exceptions  scarcely 
more  numerous  or  notable  than  any 
other  element  in  the  American  people, 
if  put  to  it,  can  exhibit,  dutifully  sup- 
ported the  United  States  government. 
Perhaps  the  majority  of  the  American 
people  of  other  stock  than  German  is 
asking  more  than  it  has  a  right  to  ask, 
in  hoping  that  this  merely  "dutiful" 
support  may,  in  spite  of  a  natural, 
sentimental  reluctance,  as  old  bitter- 
nesses in  the  course  of  time  evaporate 
in  the  solemn  consciousness  of  a  com- 
mon peril,  develop  into  a  whole- 
hearted advocacy  of  America's  cause. 
Perhaps  it  is  asking  too  much,  and  yet, 
to  ask  it,  is  only  human.  To  do  a 
service  because,  and  only  because, 
duty  demands  it,  is  much;  but  it  is  a 
platitude  that  service  means  far  more 

60 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?    61 

to  the  giver  of  it  as  well  as  to  the  one 
to  whom  it  is  gi^^en  when  there  is  heart 
behind  it. 

There  was  a  German -American  once 
upon  a  time  whose  wife  was  ill.  A 
German  cousin,  who  happened  to  be 
visiting  America  at  the  time,  heard  of 
her  illness  and  called,  leaving  a  bunch 
of  roses. 

"This  is  very  kind  of  you!"  cried 
the  German-American  appreciatively. 

"Oh,  no !"  protested  his  cousin.  "It 
was  my  duty." 

Would  he  have  been  puzzled  if  he 
had  seen  the  dubious  and  whimsical 
smile  with  which  the  German-Ameri- 
can's wife  gazed  upon  the  roses? 

The  majority  of  the  German-Ameri- 
cans are  supporting  their  government 
from  a  calm  and  deliberate  sense  of 
duty.  They  are  not  supporting  it  with 
any  enthusiasm.  No  fair-minded 
American,  of  whatever  origin  he  may 
be,  will  bear  them  any  ill-will  for 
that,  though  he  may  deeply  regret  the 
fact. 

For  the  German-Americans — be  it 


62     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

clearly  understood — believe,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  that  the  government  of  the 
United  States  made  a  series  of  tragic 
mistakes,  which  in  the  end  led  logically 
to  what  they  conceive  as  the  culminat- 
ing mistake  of  all,  America's  entrance 
into  the  World  War.  Believing  this, 
they  are  nevertheless  obediently  and 
with  open  hands  supporting  this  Gov- 
ernment, lending  it  and  giving  it  their 
gold,  lending  it — and  giving  it — their 
sons. 

Let  no  one  underrate  the  signifi- 
cance of  this.  The  German-Ameri- 
cans, whatever  they  have  said  or  done 
in  the  past,  whatever  they  are  saying 
or  failing  to  say  in  the  present,  have 
stood  the  fundamental  test  of  demo- 
cratic government. 

They  have  accepted  the  will  of  the 
majority. 

Whether  or  not  they  shall  ultimately 
go  farther  than  this  and  support 
whole-heartedly  and  with  fervor  a 
cause  in  which  today  they  disbelieve, 
depends  largely  on  the  mental  atti- 
tude toward  them  of  their  fellow-citi- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?    63 

zens  of  other  than  German  blood  and 
the  ability  of  these  fellow  citizens 
to  prove  to  the  German-Americans 
the  justice  of  their  cause,  the  purity  of 
their  motives  and  the  idealism  which 
impels  them  to  dedicate  the  American 
nation  unselfishly  to  a  crusade  for  the 
liberty  of  the  world. 

No  citizen  of  the  United  States,  see- 
ing clearly  a  lofty  ideal  imperilled, 
will  fly  to  arms  more  quickly  or  more 
enthusiastically  in  defence  of  it  than 
the  German-American.  It  is  the  part 
of  other  Americans,  it  is  the  part  of 
the  government,  to  convince  him  that 
the  ideals  which  they  profess  have  be- 
hind them  no  national  or  individual 
vindictiveness  toward  men  of  German 
blood  merely  because  they  are  of  Ger- 
man blood,  no  commercial  greed,  no 
imperialistic  designs,  but  only  a  sin- 
cere and  lofty  resolve  to  fight  and 
sacrifice  today  for  the  principles  for 
which  their  fathers  fought  and  sacri- 
ficed before  them. 


IX 


THE  German-American,  we  said, 
believed  that  the  United  States 
should  not  have  entered  the  War.  On 
what  grounds  does  he  base  this  belief? 
We  have  already  enumerated  what 
the  German-American  regards  as  cer- 
tain sins  of  omission  and  commission 
perpetrated  by  the  national  govern- 
ment during  the  years  of  our  neutral- 
ity. If  the  United  States  had  from  the 
very  beginning  of  the  War,  he  con- 
tends, been  firm  in  its  dealings  with 
both  sets  of  belligerents,  England 
would  have  been  forced  to  give  up  her 
"illegal"  blockade,  Germany  would 
consequently  never  have  inaugurated 
her  "retaliatory"  submarine  campaign, 
no  American  lives  would  have  been 
sacrificed,  and  we  should  therefore  be 
at  peace  today.  War  might  have  been 
avoided,  moreover,  he  declares,  even 

64 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?    65 

after  permitting  England  to  blockade 
Germany,  if  the  American  government 
had  placed  an  embargo  on  arms  and 
ammunition  or  warned  American  citi- 
zens not  to  travel  on  belligerent  ships. 
What  the  American  of  other  origin  re- 
gards as  merely  the  firm  assertion  and 
defence  of  American  rights  toward 
Germany,  the  German-American  re- 
gards as  weak-kneed  submission  to 
England. 

Are  the  many  German-Americans 
who  share  this  opinion  possibly  right? 

The  majority  of  the  American  peo- 
ple, and  among  them  a  growing  num- 
ber who  are  of  German  origin,  believe 
that  these  German-Americans  are  mis- 
taken. Months  before  the  proclama- 
tion of  a  blockade  or  a  war  zone  in 
the  North  Sea  by  England  or  a  greater 
war  zone  and  submarine  campaign  by 
Germany,  German  leaders  had  in  con- 
nection with  the  invasion  of  Belgium 
announced  and  defended  a  theory  of 
"military  necessity"  which  was  bound 
sooner  or  later  to  lead  to  conflict  with 
the  United  States  on  the  highway  of 


66    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

the  world.  Many  German- Americans, 
moreover,  while  publicly  defending 
Germany  and  all  its  works,  admitted  in 
private  that  her  methods  in  diplomacy 
and  in  the  conduct  of  war  were  not  al- 
together such  as  to  make  attractive  the 
prospect  of  a  smashing  German  vic- 
tory. They  accepted  President  Wil- 
son's suggestion  of  "Peace  without 
victory,"  therefore,  not  only  because 
they  suspected  that  that  was  the  only 
peace  Germany  was  ever  likely  to  get, 
but  also,  in  many  cases,  because  they 
considered  that  such  a  peace  would 
chasten  the  arrogance  of  the  German 
Junker  class. 

During  the  months  that  followed 
President  Wilson's  "Peace  without 
victory"  message  to  the  belligerents, 
the  President,  his  advisers  and  an  in- 
creasing number  of  the  American 
people  came  gradually  to  realize  two 
important  facts. 

One  was,  that  Germany's  theory  of 
government,  and  especially  her  theory 
of  a  "State  morality"  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  all  standards  of  individual 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?    67 

morality,  was  a  bar  to  any  possibility 
of  a  future  association  of  nations  for 
the  purpose  of  preventing  war;  and 
was,  furthermore,  a  constant  menace 
to  any  and  every  nation  which  was  not 
large  enough  or  not  armed  enough  at 
any  instant  to  defend  itself. 

The  other  was,  that  Germany  was 
winning  the  war,  and  undoubtedly 
would  win  it  unless  America  threw  the 
weight  of  her  resources  in  men  and 
money  on  the  side  of  the  Allies. 

Evidence  for  the  first  fact  appeared 
at  that  time  over  the  signatures  of 
Zimmermann  and  von  Bernstorff,  von 
Papen  and  Boy-Ed,  and  since  that  time 
in  the  cold  and  murderous  spurlos 
versenkt  message  of  Count  Luxburg 
and  the  numerous  reports,  only  a  shade 
less  repellent,  of  the  same  willing  tool 
to  the  same  cold-blooded  State. 

Evidence  for  the  second  fact  was 
laid  before  the  American  people  dur- 
ing the  months  that  intervened  between 
December  20th  and  April  2nd  and  was 
confirmed  in  May  by  Balfour  and 
Joffre. 


68    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

During  that  anxious  period  from 
December  to  February  when  BemstorfF 
went,  and  from  February  to  April 
when  Congress  declared  war,  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  doubtlessly  with  great 
reluctance,  rejected  his  own  sugges- 
tion of  "peace  without  victory."  A 
drawn  battle  between  the  Allies  and 
their  Teutonic  opponents,  with  the 
United  States  possibly  as  guiding  spirit 
of  the  peace  negotiations,  was  one 
thing;  a  German  victory  was  quite  an- 
other, for  there  was  evidence  ac- 
cumulating that  such  a  victory  meant 
in  the  near  future  a  war  single-handed 
with  a  stronger  Germany,  not  on  our 
own  shores,  perhaps,  but  in  South 
America  in  defence  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  President  Wilson,  there- 
fore, decided  that  the  safety  of  the 
United  States,  in  the  first  place,  and 
in  the  second,  the  stability  and  peace 
of  the  world,  depended  on  America's 
entrance  into  the  war  on  the  side  of 
the  Allies. 

When  on  April  2nd  he  called  upon 
Congress  to  declare  war  on  Germany 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     69 

in  order  that  America  might  help  "to 
make  the  world  safe  for  democracy," 
we  Americans  of  German  origin  op- 
posed him  and  in  part  ridiculed  him, 
believing  that  his  lofty  phrase  was  a 
hypocritical  mantle  to  cover  aims  that 
would  not  bear  the  blaze  of  day.  In 
the  light  of  later  evidence,  however, 
we  must  now  admit  that,  in  so  speak- 
ing, the  President  was  in  seven  memor- 
able words,  not  only  expressing 
America's  international  obligation  as 
the  greatest  of  republics,  but  also,  at 
the  same  time,  laying,  as  the  essential 
foundation  stone  of  any  future 
association  of  nations,  the  principle 
of  democracy  on  which  we  German- 
Americans  and  Americans  of  all  other 
breeds  unreservedly  pin  our  faith. 
In  one  bold,  imaginative  phrase  he 
not  only  called  upon  the  American 
people  to  uphold  for  themselves  and 
for  all  free  peoples  their  ideals  of 
liberty  and  popular  government 
against  a  cold-blooded  State  which 
considered  itself  above  human  stand- 
ards of  conduct  and  morality;  but,  by 


70    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

inevitable  inference,  also  served 
notice  upon  the  nations  at  whose 
side  he  was  about  to  set  the  United 
States,  and,  no  less,  upon  the  despots 
and  Junkers  among  our  own  people, 
that  the  price  which  the  American 
government  demanded  for  rescuing 
the  Allies  of  western  Europe  from  the 
dominance  of  Germany,  and,  inci- 
dentally, tlieir  financial  backers  in 
America  from  bankruptcy,  was  the 
extension  after  the  war  of  democratic 
rule  not  only  in  Germany  but  in  the 
countries  of  the  Allies  and  within  the 
United  States. 

If,  as  a  large  number  of  German- 
Americans  believe,  our  own  Junkers 
of  Wall  Street  forced  America  into 
the  War,  these  would-be  autocrats  of 
ours  have  been  hoist  by  their  own 
petard,  for  their  powers  and  their 
money  are  already  being  taken  from 
them. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  as  a  still 
larger  number  of  German-Americans 
assert,  England  forced  us  into  the  War, 
she  has  in  the  process  cut  off  her  own 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     71 

nose.  For  it  is  becoming  increasingly 
clear  that  the  victory  which  will  end 
this  war  in  the  only  way  that  the  free 
peoples  of  the  world  will  allow  it  to 
end,  will  be  not  an  English  victory, 
but  an  American  victory.  In  fact, 
there  is  a  prospect  of  grave  danger  in 
the  possibility  that  England  may 
realize  this  too  vividly  for  her  own 
comfort  and  consent  to  a  patched-up 
peace,  based  on  German  renunciations 
in  the  West,  before  America  can  make 
her  power  overwhelmingly  felt. 

Has  not  the  time  come  for  every 
Gesang  Verein  from  Maine  to  Cali- 
fornia to  stand  and  sing  in  unison, 
"Wer  andern  eine  Grube  grdbt,  fdllt 
selbst  hinein?'' — and  thereafter  to 
unite  in  singing  with  a  fervor  never 
felt  before,  ''My  country,  his  of  thee?'' 

We  begin  to  think  so. 


THE  writer  of  these  pages  is  one 
of  many  German-Americans  who 
believed,  mitil  a  short  time  ago,  that 
the  phrase  "to  make  the  world  safe  for 
democracy"  was,  frankly,  hypocritical 
cant,  a  kind  of  glimmering  gold  dust 
to  throw  in  the  eyes  of  the  crowd.  He 
thought  that  the  United  States  had  gone 
to  war  solely  on  the  submarine  issue 
and  he  did  not  quite  see  why,  if  it  was 
necessary  to  go  to  war  on  that  issue  in 
April,  1917,  it  was  not  even  more 
pressingly  necessary  to  go  to  war  on  it 
two  years  earlier,  while  the  horrors  of 
the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  were  still 
fresh  in  our  hearts.  The  same  objec- 
tion, for  that  matter,  might  be  made  to 
the  phrase  "to  make  the  world  safe  for 
democracy"  as  a  basis  for  our  tardy 
entry  into  the  war.     The  world  was 

more  unsafe  for  democracy  in  August 

72 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     73 

and  September  1914  than  it  has  ever 
been  since. 

Why  then  did  we  not  jump  into  the 
struggle  at  that  time? 

The  answer  is,  that  only  a  small 
minority  of  Americans,  who  seemed  to 
the  rest  of  us  at  the  time  the  wildest 
kind  of  anti-German  fanatics,  recog- 
nized in  1914  the  fact  which  the  Amer- 
ican people  is  only  now  beginning  to 
recognize  and  which  President  Wilson 
expressed  in  so  vivid  and  memorable 
a  phrase,  namely,  that  on  the  battle- 
fields of  Europe  today  a  highly  scien- 
tific and  brilliantly  organized  form  of 
autocracy  is  battling  to  dominate  the 
far  less  scientific,  far  less  efficient,  far 
less  skilfully  organized  democracies 
of  the  world.  Only  a  very  few 
Americans  recognized  the  real  char- 
acter of  the  conflict  in  the  first  or  even 
the  second  year  of  the  war.  To  the 
great  majority  it  seemed  at  bottom  an 
economic  struggle,  a  war  for  trade 
routes,  for  commercial  dominance,  a 
war  in  which  France,  Belgium  and 
Serbia,  even  Russia  and  Austria,  were 


74    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

the  dupes  and  pawns  of  the  world's 
greatest  trade  rivals,  Germany  and 
England. 

We  might  still  be  believing  that,  for 
we  are  remote  from  Europe  in  more 
senses  than  one,  and  we  do  not  credit 
all  which  garrulous  travellers  from 
those  distant  parts  seek  to  tell  us,  for 
our  own  good.  It  was  not  England  or 
English  propaganda;  it  was  not 
France,  it  was  not  Belgium,  which 
told  us,  after  many  inventions,  the 
"real  truth  about  the  War." 

It  was  Germany. 

It  was  not  through  any  propaganda, 
moreover,  that  she  told  us ;  not  through 
silver-tongued  orators,  nor  writers  of 
editorials.  Germany  told  us  the  truth 
about  the  war  not  by  the  medium  of 
words  at  all  but  by  her  own  avowed 
and  defended  deeds.  She  told  it  to 
us  with  terrifying  frankness  when  she 
sank  the  Lusitania,  not  in  sinking  her 
(which  was  absolutely  permissible 
under  international  law  and  the  laws 
of  reasonable  self-defence)  but  in 
sinking  her  without  warning  and  with- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     75 

out  making  provisions  for  the  rescue 
of  her  passengers.  She  told  us  in  the 
sinking  of  the  Arabic,  the  Ancona,  the 
Sussex,  in  the  dynamiting  of  bridges 
and  munition  plants,  in  the  revelations 
of  her  diplomatic  correspondence. 
Presenting  evidence  which  no  "Eng- 
lish propaganda"  could  ever  make 
half  as  convincing  as  she  made  it  her- 
self by  the  defence  of  her  own  states- 
men and  leaders  of  opinion,  Germany 
told  us,  indeed,  the  truth  about  the 
war. 

That  truth  was,  that  a  people  who 
considered  themselves  "the  centre  of 
God's  plan  for  the  world"  (Pastor  W. 
Lehmann)  and  believed  themselves 
hated  and  pursued  by  other  nations 
(in  the  words  of  another  of  their  in- 
tellectual leaders,  Professor  Sombart) 
only  because  of  their  "enormous 
spiritual  superiority"  as  "the  repre- 
sentatives of  God  on  earth,"  had 
allowed  a  system  of  political  morality 
to  develop  among  their  ruling  classes 
which  made  utterly  precarious  the 
existence  of  any  nation  which  was  not 


76    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

at  all  times  highly  organized  for  de- 
fence and  which,  by  reason  of  its  more 
popular  and  therefore  less  centralized 
form  of  government,  could  not,  with- 
out sacrificing  its  ideals,  be  so  or- 
ganized. 

It  was  Germany  herself  who  told 
us  and  who  proved  to  us  beyond  ques- 
tion that  the  Great  War  was  not  merely 
a  conflict  between  trade  rivals,  but 
a  war  between  autocracy,  scientific, 
efficient  but  conscienceless,  on  the  one 
hand;  and  on  the  other,  democracy, 
blundering,  inefficient  and  in  detail 
corrupt,  but  in  the  main  progressive 
and  sensitive  to  the  opinions  of  men. 

It  was  Germany  herself  who  made 
this  clear  to  us.  It  was  Germany 
praising  (a  little  too  loudly  we 
thought)  her  own  point  of  view, 
her  own  spirit  of  sacrifice,  self-dis- 
cipline, self-abnegation;  it  was  Ger- 
many praising  above  all  things,  war 
and  the  grandiose  conception  of  the 
German  State  as  the  self-appointed 
health-officer  of  the  world  testing  out 
who,  under  the  laws  of  biology,  was 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     77 

among  the  nations  fit  to  survive;  it 
was  Germany,  showing  us  by  her  ac- 
tions, that  she  was  true  to  the 
philosophy  she  preached,  who  made 
us  remember  our  own  notions  of  life 
and  government,  and  made  us  as  a 
people  see  them  and  feel  them  as  we 
had  not  seen  them  and  felt  them  for 
half  a  century. 

It  was  Germany  like  a  schoolmaster 
drumming  into  our  heads  night  and 
day  her  supreme  belief  in  Force,  who 
made  us  remember  that  our  faith  as 
a  people  rested  on  Justice. 

It  was  Germany,  showing  us  the 
effects,  physical  and  psychological, 
within  and  without,  of  autocratic, 
paternal  government,  which  made  us 
decide  that  democracy  was  worth 
preserving  even  at  the  cost  of  all  we 
possessed  of  treasure  and  youth. 


XI 


WE  say  that  this  is  a  war  be- 
tween autocracy  and  democ- 
racy. That  is  one  of  those  glittering 
generalities  which  are  always  open 
to  suspicion.  But,  whereas  most 
slogans  of  the  sort  are  superficially 
true  and  fundamentally  false,  this 
slogan  is  at  bottom  sound  and  untrue 
only  on  the  surface. 

Germany  is  assuredly  not  in  form 
an  autocracy,  as  Russia,  before  the 
days  of  the  Duma  was  an  autocracy; 
that  is,  an  empire  ruled  by  an  absolute 
monarch  responsible  only  to  himself 
and  God,  and  not  very  responsible  to 
God.  William  the  Second,  as  King 
of  Prussia,  is,  theoretically,  limited 
in  his  control  by  an  Upper  House  and 
a  House  of  Representatives;  as  Ger- 
man Emperor,  he  is  president  of  a 

confederation    of    some    twenty-odd 

78 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     79 

states,  whose  representatives  constitute 
the  Bundesrat  or  Federal  Council, 
which  is  theoretically  an  associate 
House  of  the  Reichstag,  the  popular 
assembly. 

All  the  machinery  of  a  constitu- 
tional and  democratic  monarchy  like 
England,  Italy,  Norway,  Sweden,  Den- 
mark, Holland,  Greece,  is  present  in 
Germany,  and  it  operates  smoothly 
and  is  a  pleasure  to  the  eye.  Where- 
in then  does  the  government  of  Ger- 
many differ  so  vitally  from  the  gov- 
ernment of  these  other  nations,  that  we 
presume  to  call  Germany,  which  is 
ruled  by  a  monarch,  an  autocracy,  and 
these  other  countries,  which  are  like- 
wise ruled  by  monarchs,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  democracies? 

Is  this  sheer  hypocritical  cant?  Let 
us  see. 

In  England,  the  actual  government 
is  under  the  direction  of  a  Prime 
Minister  appointed  ostensibly  by  the 
King,  but  responsible  to  Parliament 
and  only  to  Parliament,  which  can,  in 
the  American  meaning  of  the  word, 


80    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

"recall"  him  at  any  moment  and  with 
no  greater  eflfort  than  it  takes  to  record 
a  parliamentary  vote.  As  soon  as 
the  Prime  Minister  loses  his  majority 
in  Parliament,  he  automatically  loses 
his  position,  which,  thereupon,  de- 
scends on  the  leader  of  the  Opposi- 
tion. The  King  may  not  desire  this 
change  of  administration.  Person- 
ally, he  may  in  fact  violently  object 
to  it,  but  his  opinion  on  the  matter, 
though  more  interesting,  is  actually 
no  more  important  in  influencing  the 
course  of  events  than  the  opinion  of 
the  postmaster  of  Ballachulish.  The 
King  "regrets"  to  accept  the  resigna- 
tion of  Lord  So-and-So,  and  takes 
pleasure  in  graciously  requesting  Mr. 
Other-and-So  to  form  a  new  Cabinet; 
and  the  government  goes  on  and  the 
majority,  somewhat  differently  con- 
stituted, continues  to  rule.  In  its  es- 
sence, that  is  democracy;  for  the 
people,  through  their  representatives 
in  Parliament,  at  all  times  have  con- 
trol of  those  who  govern  them,  with 
a  power  which  we  in  America  lack, 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?    81 

of  changing  their  government  at  any 
moment  when  their  governors  cease  to 
represent  the  views  of  the  majority  of 
the  people  as  represented  in  the  House 
of  Commons. 

In  Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
Prime  Minister,  or  Imperial  Chan- 
cellor, though  appointed  also  by  the 
monarch,  is  responsible  not  to  parlia- 
ment at  all,  but  only  to  the  master  who 
appoints  him.  Neither  the  Federal 
Council  nor  the  Reichstag  are  officially 
consulted  in  his  selection  or  have 
power  to  veto  it.  He  is  set  in  his 
place  by  the  arbitrary  will  and  whim 
of  the  sovereign,  subject  only  to  the 
sovereign's  political  sagacity  and  re- 
spect for  public  opinion,  and  he  holds 
his  place  as  long  and  only  as  long 
as  his  master  is  satisfied  with  his  work. 
The  Reichstag  may  rail  and  tear  its 
hair;  it  makes  no  difference.  The 
Emperor  appoints  him  and  only  the 
Emperor  can  remove  him. 

The  Reichstag,  furthermore,  is  im- 
potent, not  only  in  the  appointment 
and  removal  of  the  Chancellor,  but 


82    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

also  largely  in  the  matter  of  legisla- 
tion. Most  legislation  originates  in 
the  Federal  Council  which  represents 
solely  the  rulers  of  the  twenty-six 
federated  states;  but  whether  it 
originates  there  or  in  the  Reichstag, 
all  legislation  is  subject  to  this 
Council's  consent.  This  Council, 
moreover,  is  not  merely  a  body  of 
aristocrats  like  the  House  of  Lords 
(many  of  whom,  incidentally,  were 
commoners  yesterday  with  a  com- 
moner's point  of  view) ;  its  members 
ostensibly  represent  the  governments 
of  the  federated  states,  but,  being  not 
elective  but  appointive,  they  are  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  the  representa- 
tives not  of  the  peoples  of  the  states 
from  which  they  come  but  of  certain 
kings,  dukes  and  princes  almost  all  of 
whom  are  either  members  of  the  House 
of  Hohenzollern  or  connected  with  it 
by  marriage.  The  Grand  Duke  of 
Baden,  for  instance,  is  the  Emperor's 
first  cousin;  the  Duke  of  Schles- 
wig-Holstein  is  his  brother-in-law;  the 
Grand  Duke  of  Oldenburg  is  the  fa- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     83 

ther-in-law  of  one  of  his  sons;  the 
Duke  of  Schleswig-Holstein-Sonder- 
burg-Gliicksburg  the  father-in-law  of 
another;  the  Grand  Duke  of  Mecklen- 
burg-Schwerin  is  the  brother-in-law  of 
a  third;  the  Duke  of  Saxe-Meiningen 
the  brother-in-law  of  a  fourth;  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick  is  the  husband  of 
his  only  daughter;  the  Prince  of 
Schaumburg-Lippe,  the  husband  of 
one  of  his  sisters;  the  Duke  of  Saxe- 
Meiningen  tlie  husband  of  another; 
and  so  forth  and  so  on.  It  is  quite  a 
family  affair.  All  of  these  dukes, 
princes  and  princesses  hold  actual  or 
honorary  commissions  under  him,  as 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Prussian 
army.  When  one  considers,  more- 
over, that  the  great  families  of  Ger- 
many, and  especially  the  royal  or 
semi-royal  families,  are  absolutely 
subject  to  the  autocratic  rule  of  the 
head  of  the  house — the  composition  of 
the  Federal  Council  becomes  signifi- 
cant. 

That  Council  controls  the  Reichs- 
tag, inasmuch  as  it  has  the  power  to 


84    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

nullify  its  actions;  it  is  in  turn  con- 
trolled by  the  House  of  Hohenzollern 
which  is  under  the  absolute  and  un- 
questioned dominance  of  the  Emperor. 
The  Emperor  is  supported  by  the 
Prussian  army,  the  imperial  navy  and 
by  thousands  of  Prussian  and  im- 
perial administrative  or  judicial 
office-holders,  professors  and  school 
teachers  who  hold  their  positions  at 
his  pleasure.  The  Emperor  who, 
quite  apart  from  family  influence, 
as  King  of  Prussia  controls  seventeen 
out  of  the  Council's  sixty-one  votes, 
can  declare  off'ensive  war  with  the 
consent  of  the  Federal  Council,  with- 
out consulting  the  Reichstag;  he  may 
declare  what  he  in  his  own  unsup- 
ported judgment  may  consider  defen- 
sive war,  as  in  1914,  without  the  con- 
sent of  either  body.  In  the  waging  of 
war,  the  Reichstag  enters  only  as  that 
branch  of  the  government  which  votes 
the  necessary  credits;  and  even  here 
it  has  power  only  to  annoy,  not  to  con- 
trol the  executive.  For  if  it  withholds 
the  credits,  the  Kaiser  can  dissolve  the 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     85 

Reichstag  and  create  a  military 
dictatorship,  a  move  which  the  Pan- 
Germans  have  frequently  advocated. 
Conditions  in  Germany  are  therefore 
exactly  the  reverse  of  what  they  are 
in  England.  For  in  Germany  it  is 
not  the  monarch  but  the  Reichstag 
which  is  the  decoration,  playing  to 
some  extent  the  amiable  part  which 
the  King  plays  in  England — its  views, 
that  is,  are  always  highly  interesting, 
but  in  a  pinch,  of  no  influence  what- 
ever in  the  actual  conduct  of  afl'airs. 
The  Reichstag  is  in  many  instances,  as 
an  editorial  in  the  Frankfurter  Zei- 
tung  pointed  out  as  recently  as  Jan- 
uary first  of  this  year,  "a  mere  debat- 
ing club,"  wildly  waving  its  arms 
while  the  Federal  Council  with  the 
Chancellor  at  its  head,  and  ultimately 
the  Emperor  himself,  supported  by  the 
Great  General  Staff",  make  the  deci- 
sions against  which  the  people  have  no 
appeal. 

Efficient  though  it  may  be,  benevo- 
lent though  it  may  be,  surely  this  is 
autocracy. 


86    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

The  German  government  is  a  gov- 
ernment by  experts.  From  the 
Emperor,  trained  from  childhood 
for  his  place,  down  to  the  young- 
est Referendar,  or  judge's  secretary, 
and  including  governors  of  provinces 
and  districts,  diplomats,  consuls, 
mayors,  judges,  police  superintend- 
ents, health  officers,  all  are  experts, 
each  in  his  own  field.  The  result  is 
marvellous  efficiency,  but  it  is  ef- 
ficiency bought  at  the  price  of  that 
liberty,  equality,  fraternity,  which  we 
Americans  cherish  as  the  fundamental 
blessings  of  democracy. 

For  suffrage  in  Germany  and  espe- 
cially in  Prussia,  the  dominant  state  in 
the  Empire,  is  based  on  property,  so 
that  a  single  rich  man  may  and  does, 
here  and  there,  hold  in  himself  one- 
third  the  voting  power  of  a  district; 
and  the  four  percent  of  the  rich  and 
the  fourteen  percent  of  the  well-to-do 
have  as  much  representation  in  the 
Prussian  Landtag  as  the  eighty-two 
percent  of  the  poor.  The  election  of 
deputies  to  the  Reichstag  is  not  thus 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     87 

circumscribed,  indeed,  but  the  ballot- 
ing is  open,  not,  as  in  the  United 
States,  secret.  Voters  can,  therefore, 
be  controlled  by  their  employers  by 
the  mere  threat  of  discharge.  Surely 
such  a  system  is  a  very  mockery  of 
any  conception  of  liberty  and  of 
equality. 

The  German  system,  indeed,  is 
based  on  the  denial  of  equality.  To 
the  mind  of  the  German  State,  there 
are  two  hereditary  classes,  the  gov- 
ernors and  the  governed,  separated 
by  the  twin  bars  of  social  caste  and 
the  possession  of  wealth.  A  man  is 
bom  to  be  a  governor  or  he  is  born 
to  be  governed.  There  is,  in  a  sense, 
no  escaping  either  fate,  for  the  son 
of  a  count  must  be  feeble-minded,  in- 
deed, who  cannot  secure  a  commission 
in  a  crack  regiment;  and  the  son  of 
a  laborer  can  no  more  hope  to  rise 
to  a  position  in  the  higher  government 
service  than  he  can  hope  to  become  a 
lieutenant  in  the  Prussian  Guards. 
Social  distinctions  are  sharp  and  abso- 
lute and  rest  in  family  plus  wealth. 


88    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

In  the  government  service,  itself,  the 
administrative  branch  is  open  only  to 
men  of  family  who  have  a  certain 
amount  of  money  with  which  to  enter- 
tain in  a  fashion  worthy  of  the  prestige 
of  a  Prussian  official.  The  judicial 
branch  holds,  socially,  a  distinctly 
inferior  position. 

There  was  once  upon  a  time  (and 
this  is  a  true  story)  a  certain  rich 
and  ambitious  lady  with  a  marriage- 
able daughter.  A  young  Prussian 
official  of  her  own  social  caste  wooed 
her  daughter  and  won  her. 

"I  like  him  so  much,"  she  said  of 
her  prospective  son-in-law.  "And 
isn't  it  just  splendid  that  he  is  in  the 
administrative  and  not  the  judicial 
branch?  Because  naturally  if  he 
were  in  the  judicial  branch  I  could  not 
give  him  my  daughter." 

The  whole  educational  system  is 
organized,  financed  and  controlled  in 
a  manner  unmistakably  intended  to 
make  ever  wider  the  gap  between  the 
sons  of  the  small  governing  class  and 
the   sons   of  the   class,   eight   or  ten 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     89 

times  as  great,  which  is  governed. 
The  sons  of  the  nobility,  the 
aristocracy,  the  upper  middle  class 
and  a  very  few  of  the  lower  middle 
class  who  have  money,  go  to  the 
Gymnasia,  the  Kadettenschulen  and 
similar  institutions,  and  to  the  educa- 
tion of  this  tenth  of  the  nation's  youth, 
the  Prussian  government  devotes 
nearly  one  quarter  of  its  total  educa- 
tional appropriation.  On  the  child  in 
the  Volkschule  (which  corresponds  to 
the  American  public  school),  the  gov- 
ernment expends  65  marks  annually 
(a  matter  of  sixteen  dollars  at  the 
normal  rate  of  exchange).  On  the 
child  in  the  middle  schools,  it  expends 
112  marks;  on  the  child  in  the  higher 
schools,  248  marks.  The  average 
size  of  a  class  in  the  Volkschule  is 
55  pupils  per  teacher.  In  the  United 
States,  40  has  been  found  too  great  a 
number  for  efficient  instruction  and 
the  average  over  this  country  is  33. 

"Many  of  the  most  illustrious 
teachers  of  Germany,"  writes  Win- 
throp  Talbot  in  a  recent  article  in  the 


90    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

Century,  prefaced  and  endorsed  by 
Professor  John  Dewey,  "have  main- 
tained, observant  of  imperial  expres- 
sions and  policies,  that  the  state  is  best 
subserved  by  keeping  the  bulk  of  the 
people  in  a  stunted  state  of  mental 
starvation  for  unthinking  toil  and  that 
the  work  of  the  world  cannot  be  done 
without  a  large  degree  of  existing 
near-illiteracy;  and  for  this  reason 
they  have  opposed  strenuously  the 
policy  of  generous  public  expenditure 
for  popular  education." 

Wherefore,  the  machinery  of  gov- 
ernment continues  to  run  smoothly, 
unhampered  by  the  rude  injection  of 
wrenches  thrown  by  an  awakening 
populace;  and  still,  as  Prince  Max  of 
Baden  bitterly  cried  in  the  upper 
chamber  of  that  state  recently,  "The 
majority  of  Germans  indolently  accept 
the  authorities  without  any  desire  on 
their  part  to  share  in  responsibility  for 
the  welfare  of  the  Fatherland." 

No  liberty  to  rise,  no  equality  in 
education  or  the  conduct  of  govern- 
ment,   no    fraternity    whatsoever    be- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?    91 

tween  the  governing  classes  and  the 
classes  governed — what  fools  Ger- 
many's silver-tongued  defenders  have 
sought  to  make  of  us  when  they  de- 
clared that  Germany  was  as  demo- 
cratic a  nation  as  ours!  They  thought 
we  did  not  know  anything  about  Ger- 
many.    And  they  were  right. 

But  we  are  learning. 

"Germany  has  changed  during  these 
years  of  war,"  her  friends  declare. 
"The  war  has  been  a  great  leveller. 
Class  distinctions  have  vanished." 

Let  us  see. 

From  the  heart  of  Germany  itself 
comes  the  illuminating  word.  "Truly, 
there  is  need  these  days  of  the  intelli- 
gence not  only  of  the  middle  class  but 
of  the  proletariat,"  writes  a  prominent 
German  scientist  satirically.  "But 
what  are  you  going  to  do,  when  peace 
comes,  with  a  man  'who  himself  ad- 
mits that  his  father  was  a  stone-mason's 
assistant'?  Since  the  subalterns  who 
are  doing  commissioned  officers'  duty, 
popular  as  they  are,  do  not  of  them- 
selves have  adequate  authority,   the 


92    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

government  has  created  the  temporary 
makeshift  of  subaltern-lieutenants  to 
be  considered  equals  at  officers'  mess 
only  at  the  fighting  front." 

So  much  for  Germany's  democracy. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  ask  the  ques- 
tion whether  Germany's  conception  of 
government  by  experts  may  not,  after 
all,  be  the  right  conception;  and  ours 
may  not,  for  all  our  boasts,  be  wrong. 
For  truly,  Germany  is  well-governed, 
benevolently,  efficiently  and,  as  far  as 
dollar-corruption  goes,  honestly  gov- 
erned. Its  poor  and  sick  are  cared 
for,  its  laborers  and  its  aged  are  pro- 
tected. And  our  democratic  govern- 
ment is  inefficient,  corrupt,  incorrigi- 
bly short-sighted,  and  always  wasteful, 
beyond  imagining,  of  money  and  of 
time. 

And  yet — 

It  is  not  cant  to  say  that  in  America 
all  have  an  equal  chance  to  rise, 
through  education  free  and  equal  for 
all,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest 
place.     It  is  not  cant  to  say  that  the 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     93 

classes  of  governors  and  governed  in 
this  country  are  made  up  not  of  those 
to  whom,  on  the  one  hand,  opportu- 
nity is  given,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
those  from  whom  opportunity  is  con- 
sciously withheld;  but  of  those,  rich 
and  poor,  who  take  the  opportunity 
held  out  equally  to  all,  and  those  who 
refuse  to  take  it.  It  is  not  cant  to  say 
that  the  vote  of  the  poor  man  is  as 
powerful  as  the  vote  of  the  rich. 

It  is  the  simple  truth,  and  it  means 
that,  with  all  our  countless  faults  and 
stupidities  and  petty  and  great  cor- 
ruptions, our  feet  are  set  on  th,e  road 
to  that  ideal  whose  motto,  is:  Thou 
shall  love  Phy  neighbor  as  thyself. 


XII 

HERE  we  Americans  of  German 
blood  stand,  confronting,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  country  of  our  origin, 
highly  organized  and  admirable  to  the 
eye,  yet  materialistic  and  (if  we  may 
believe  her  own  Bemstorffs  and  Lux- 
burgs)  coldly  corrupt  at  heart;  and, 
on  the  other,  the  country  of  our  adop- 
tion, so  childish,  so  optimistic,  so 
money-grubbing  and  yet  at  bottom  so 
idealistic,  somehow  so  grand! 

We  stand  between  two  masters. 
We  cannot  serve  them  both,  not  even 
in  the  undisturbed  silence  of  our  own 
hearts.  For  the  ideal  which  Ger- 
many represents  is  so  utterly  removed 
from  the  ideal  which  America  is,  in 
her  blundering  way,  seeking  after, 
that  no  one  who  cleaves  to  the  one  can 
for  an  instant  hold  to  the  other. 

Here  no  neutrality  is  possible. 

94 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     95 

Do  we  believe  in  paternal  govern- 
ment by  experts,  with  the  inequality 
and  the  concentration  of  power  in  a 
few  possibly  efficient  but  irresponsible 
hands,  that  inevitably  go  with  such  a 
form  of  government? 

Or— 

Do  we  believe  in  democratic  gov- 
ernment which,  with  all  its  sins  and 
shortcomings  on  its  head,  does  make 
for  equality  and  does  call  upon  each 
individual  rich  and  poor,  to  develop, 
for  his  own  good  and  for  the  good  of 
all,  whatever  talents  he  may  possess? 

We  men  and  women  of  German 
blood  must  understand  clearly  the 
issues  that  are  involved  and,  facing 
them,  must  take  our  choice.  For  it 
is  not  only  that  America,  counting 
heads  and  hearts,  must  know  unmis- 
takably who  is  heart  and  soul  for  her, 
and  who  is  for  her  only  as  a  matter  of 
convenience*  while  in  the  depths  of  his 
being  he  holds  to  the  principles  of 
the  enemy.  It  is  rather  this — ^that 
America  in  this  great  crisis  needs  on 
her  side  the  passionate  idealism  of 


96    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

that  old  German  spirit  which  has  been 
educated  out  of  the  German  citizen 
of  today  and  survives  in  its  old  force 
only  here  where  it  has  found  the  free 
and  congenial  air  denied  it  among  the 
hills  and  woods  of  its  birth. 

The  forefathers  of  many  of  us  were 
Forty-eighters.  They  rebelled  in 
Prussia,  in  Saxony,  in  Hanover, 
in  Bavaria,  Baden,  Wiirtenberg, 
Austria,  Hungary,  against  an  auto- 
cratic form  of  government  which,  in 
the  seventy  years  which  have  since 
elapsed,  has  grown  powerful  beyond 
the  fears  even  of  those  who  in  1848 
gave  their  lives  to  overthrow  it.  Those 
fathers  and  grandfathers  of  ours 
failed,  beaten  down  even  in  cities  not 
under  Prussian  rule,  by  Prussian 
troops.  Not  the  autocracy,  but  they 
were  crushed.  They  fled,  some  from 
prison  with  the  death  penalty  on  their 
heads,  to  England,  where  the  poets 
Kinkel  and  Freiligrath  among  others, 
found  sympathetic  refuge;  the  ma- 
jority to  America. 

What  these  magnificent  revolution- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?    97 

ists  stood  for  and  accomplished  over 
here  is  history,  and  the  greatest  of 
them,  Carl  Schurz,  will  always  remain 
one  of  the  noblest,  as  he  was  one  of 
the  most  striking  and  picturesque, 
political  figures  of  his  time. 

Confronted  with  the  choice  between 
autocracy  and  democracy,  those  men, 
in  the  bitter  conflicts  of  1848  and 
1849,  chose  rather  to  shed  the  blood 
of  their  own  fellow-citizens,  as  Ameri- 
cans in  1776  had  chosen  rather  to  shed 
the  blood  of  their  own  kin,  than  to 
leave  undefended  against  the  forces  of 
reaction  the  principles  of  popular  gov- 
ernment in  which  they  believed. 

It  is  no  new  problem  that  we  are 
asked  to  face.  It  is  in  a  sense  not 
even  a  new  war  in  which  we  are  asked 
to  take  sides.  It  is  for  us  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  war  begun  by  our 
fathers  for  the  democratization  of  the 
governments  of  the  world.  It  is  for 
us  the  opportunity  to  carry  to  fulfil- 
ment their  holiest  dreams. 

And  not  only  their  dreams,  not  only 
the  dreams  of  those  brave  men  long 


98     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

dead;  but  the  dreams  of  the  noble 
minds  of  Germany  today  which,  amid 
the  orgy  of  materialism,  have  been 
able  to  keep  the  lights  of  the  spirit 
burning.  As  the  German  dreamers  of 
the  past  looked  to  America  for  inspira- 
tion, so  the  dreamers  of  today  look  to 
her  to  lead  the  world  toward  a  new  and 
wider  conception  of  patriotism  than 
the  patriotism  to  a  dynasty  or  a  single 
narrow,  jealous,  self-conscious  State. 
A  German  professor  of  physiology 
at  the  University  of  Berlin,  Dr.  Nico- 
lay,  dared  to  express  his  dream  of  such 
a  wider  patriotism,  and  was  impris- 
oned in  the  fortress  of  Graudenz  for 
his  presumption.  "That  new  patriot- 
ism is  already  a  living  thing  beyond 
the  water,"  he  cries.  "Over  there  it 
could  come  to  birth  because  there  the 
dynastic  patriotism  of  the  past  has  be- 
come transformed  into  a  true  patriot- 
ism to  an  ideal.  The  new  Europe  has 
already  been  bom,  not  indeed  in  Eu- 
rope, but  over  there  where  there  are  no 
ruined  castles  and  no  mediaeval  junk 
and  tomfoolery.     The  new  Europe  has 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     99 

been  bom.  Let  it  be  the  care  of  us 
Europeans  who  remain  that  it  become 
a  living  thing  on  our  old  soil  likewise, 
in  order  that  civilization  be  not  lost  to 
us  for  ever  in  favor  of  America." 

It  is  thus  that  a  German  professor 
at  Germany's  greatest  university  sees 
the  contrast  between  the  country  of  our 
fathers  and  the  country  of  which  we 
today  are  citizens.  Not  Germany,  he 
declares,  but  America  is  the  torch- 
bearer  of  civilization,  because  here  has 
already  transpired  what  must  transpire 
in  Europe  during  th^  coming  genera- 
tions if  European  civilization  is  to  en- 
dure— the  breaking  down  of  barriers 
of  race  and  language  and  origin,  the 
wholesale  burial  of  hatchets  in  the 
clear  light  of  a  great  ideal  of  liberty 
shared  by  all  alike. 

The  German  dreamer  in  prison  sees 
in  the  working  of  the  American  melt- 
ing-pot the  hope  of  enduring  peace  for 
Europe;  even  as  the  German  laborer, 
rioting  in  the  streets  of  Breslau  or 
Berlin,  sees  in  the  equality  of  educa- 
tion and  franchise,  which  the  Ameri- 


100     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

can  enjoys,  the  hope  of  economic  in- 
dependence, and  a  greater  opportunity 
for  his  children. 

If  the  dreamer  in  Germany  is  will- 
ing to  go  to  prison  for  the  sake  of 
preaching  American  ideals,  and  the 
laborer  in  Germany  is  willing  to  fling 
himself  against  the  bayonets  of  the 
police  for  them,  can  we  Americans  of 
German  blood,  who  live  and  prosper 
under  a  government  based  on  those 
ideals,  do  less  than  give  that  govern- 
ment our  open,  ungrudging  and  enthu- 
siastic declaration  of  support? 


XIII 

WHERE  do  you  stand? 
Where  can  we,  Americans  of 
German  origin,  with  our  Miihlenberg 
and  Herkimer,  who  fought  for  liberty 
in  the  American  Revolution,  with  our 
Sigel,  Blenker,  Hecker,  Osterhaus, 
Carl  Schurz  and  their  comrades  who 
fought  for  liberty  first  in  Germany, 
and,  failing  there,  fought  for  liberty 
under  the  banner  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, where  can  we  stand,  in  justice  to 
our  high  tradition,  except  heart  and 
soul  with  those  who  today  fight  for  lib- 
erty against  the  identical  system  and 
the  identical  dynasty  against  which 
our  fathers  fought  two  generations 
ago? 

Not  only  loyalty  to  the  government 
to  which  we  owe  allegiance,  but 
loyalty  to  the  spirit  and  the  high  tradi- 
tions  of   our  German   revolutionary 

101 


102     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

heroes,  demand  that  today  we  stand 
unmistakably  with  and  for  America. 

Surely,  the  great  majority  of 
Americans  of  German  origin  do  so 
stand. 

Why  then  do  they  still  refuse 
frankly  and  freely  to  admit  it?  Why 
do  they  still  permit  the  shadow  of  past 
misunderstandings  to  loom  between 
them  and  the  rest  of  the  American 
people?  Why  do  they  still  permit 
any  one  to  fear  that  they  stand  for  and 
behind  Germany? 

Their  reluctance  is  perhaps  some- 
what a  matter  of  pride,  somewhat  a 
matter  of  resentment;  but  most  of  all 
it  is  a  matter  of  sentiment. 

We  German-Americans  are,  many 
of  us,  prisoners  of  an  illusion,  tied 
hand  and  foot  by  sentimentalities. 
Only  a  number  altogether  negligible 
would  ever  want  to  take  up  arms  for 
Germany.  The  majority  are  fully 
conscious  that  they  belong  to  America, 
that  their  future  and  the  future  of 
their  children  lie  here.  But  senti- 
ments tie  our  hands  behind  our  backs ; 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     103 

and  they  are  not  even  valid  sentiments. 
The  Germany  to  which  our  hearts  now 
turn  in  sympathy  is  not  the  Germany 
we  actually  know — ^hard,  materialistic 
and  brutally  bent  on  achieving,  pre- 
serving and  exercising  power — but  a 
tender  land  of  green  valleys  and 
sleepy  towns,  of  castle  ruins  and  cosy 
taverns  in  their  shadow — (ah,  to  the 
writer  of  these  pages,  too,  there  is 
magic  in  those  dear  names,  Drachen- 
fels,  Riidesheim,  Assmannshausen, 
Lahneck,  Rolandseck,  Schloss  Hard- 
enberg,  Plesse,  Gleichen,  Hanstein, 
Yburg!) — of  singing  and  fiddle  play- 
ing and  dancing  in  the  woods  and 
coffee  parties  and  hilarious  excursions 
and  summer  walking-trips  along  the 
Rhine  and  through  the  Black  Forest, 
and  in  it  and  through  it  all,  the 
"Trompeter  von  Sakkingen"  school 
of  sentimental  romance  and  the  gay 
tenderness  of  Eichendorff's  "Tauge- 
nichts."  It  is  to  this  picture-book 
Germany  that  our  minds  return.  In- 
stead of  contrasting  German  actuality 
with  American  actuality,  we  contrast 


104    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

this  dream-Germany  with  workaday 
America ;  and  against  so  rosy  a  dream, 
America,  however  hospitable,  however 
helpful,  seems  alien  and  unkind;  and 
liberty,  equality  and  the  possibility  of 
fraternity  are  altogether  forgotten. 

We  German-Americans  are  fettered 
with  illusions.  "Germany  gave  us  so 
much,"  we  say.  "How  can  we  turn 
against  her?"  When  we  say  that  we 
forget  that,  once  upon  a  time,  we  or 
our  fathers  somewhere  in  Germany 
weighed  thoughtfully  the  benefits  of 
German  life  and  the  probable  benefits 
of  American  life,  weighed  the  Gemut- 
lichkeit,  the  charm,  the  consciousness 
of  "being  home"  among  friends, 
against  the  greater  freedom,  the 
greater  opportunity  that  the  distant 
shore  seemed  to  promise;  and  chose 
to  leave  the  old  home  and  seek  the 
distant  shore.  What  America  offered 
seemed  then  of  greater  value  than 
what  Germany  offered.  Our  fathers 
came  to  America  and  were  evidently 
not  disappointed,  for  they  remained. 
They  recognized  that  what  America 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     105 

gave  was  to  them  of  greater  value 
than  what  Germany  could  give  them. 
"Germany  gave  us  so  much.  How 
can  we  turn  against  her?"  Our 
fathers  turned  against  her  years  ago 
for  reasons  which  then  seemed  just. 
They  wanted  the  benefits  which  life 
in  America  promised.  They  secured 
them  and  enjoyed  them;  and  we,  their 
sons,  in  our  time  are  enjoying  them. 
Now  like  a  child  that  has  paid  a  nickel 
for  a  toy,  we  are  crying  because  the 
salesman  will  not  let  us  have  the  toy 
and  the  nickel  also. 

We  German-Americans  are  prison- 
ers of  an  illusion.  "Germany  gave  us 
so  much,"  we  say.  True,  Germany 
did  give  us  much.  Germany  gave  us 
charming  customs,  such  as  birthday 
and  Christmas  celebrations;  Germany 
gave  us  a  love  for  poetry,  for  music; 
she  gave  us  a  keen  sense  of  duty,  of 
self-discipline,  of  integrity  in  busi- 
ness, of  family  loyalty.  But  the 
qualities  of  character  which  she  gave 
are  not  exclusively  German  qualities. 
There  are  cannibals  in  the  interior  of 


106    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

South  America  who  would  rather  die 
than  break  a  promise.  The  other 
gifts,  moreover,  especially  the  gift  of 
a  beautiful  language  and  a  beautiful 
literature — what  have  we  done  with 
those? 

"Germany  gave  us  so  much." 
When  we  say  that,  we  speak  of  the 
language,  the  poetry.  And  here 
again  we  are  deceiving  ourselves, 
we  are  sentimentalizing.  For  how 
have  we  German-Americans  actually 
cherished  the  German  language  in  the 
generations  during  which  we  were  al- 
lowed to  cultivate  it  without  opposi- 
tion? Did  we  cling  to  it  because  we 
loved  it  for  its  own  sake  and  the  sake 
of  the  Fatherland?  A  few  among  the 
educated  have  actually  clung  to  it  and 
held  it  high  for  reasons  of  sentiment. 
The  majority,  however,  used  it  be- 
cause at  first  it  was  easier  to  speak 
German  than  to  learn  English.  After 
a  while  they  found  it  was  easier  to 
use  here  and  there  an  English  word 
or  American  localism  heard  a  hundred 
times  a  day,  than  to  bother  to  find 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     107 

its  exact  German  equivalent.  Then, 
soon,  they  were  talking  the  bastard 
lingo  in  which  the  classic  example, 
"die  cow  iss  eeber  die  fence  gechumpt 
and  hat  die  kebbedges  gedamaged, 
only  slightly  exaggerates  the  awful 
corruption  of  both  tongues.  Surely, 
people  who  allow  themselves  or  their 
children  to  talk  a  hodge-podge  of  that 
sort  cannot  be  said  to  be  cherishing 
the  spiritual  heritage  of  the  Father- 
land. 

We  German-Americans  have  not 
cherished  it.  We  are  merely  trying 
to  fool  ourselves  into  believing  that  we 
have  cherished  it  or  still  cherish  it. 
The  object  of  the  various  associations 
of  German-Americans  was  ostensibly 
to  keep  fresh  the  memory  of  the  Ger- 
man language  and  culture.  What 
they  actually  did  keep  fresh  were  cer- 
tain German  customs  and  a  somewhat 
maudlin  homesickness  for  a  dream- 
Germany.  They  encouraged  the  pre- 
tence that  German-Americans  were 
exiles,  and  frequently  on  festive  occa- 
sions we  have  pleasantly  recalled  our 


108     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

hard  lot  and  pleasantly  forgotten  it 
the  morning  after  and  gone  about  our 
business. 

Germans  are  naturally  sentimental. 
They  are  never  so  happy  as  when  they 
are  sad,  and  it  is  notorious  that  when 
they  are  having  the  gayest  time,  they 
sing 

^'Ich  weiss  nicht  was  soil  es  bedeuten 
Dass  ich  so  traurig  bin." 

It  is  natural-bom  sentimentality 
which  has  tied  the  German-American 
to  a  Fatherland  which  he  left  for 
excellent  reasons  and  to  which  he  has 
given  no  practical  attention  since. 
Like  all  sentimentalists,  he  wants  to 
have  his  cake  and  eat  it,  too;  he  for- 
swears his  allegiance  to  Germany  be- 
cause he  wants  to  enjoy  American 
equality  of  opportunity  for  himself 
and  for  his  children,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  persuades  himself  that  he  is 
still  ein  guter  braver  Deutscher, 
America  is  his  wife,  but  he  keeps 
Germany  as  his  soul-mate,  and  is 
puzzled  and  offended  when  his  wife 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     109 

boxes  his  ears,   and  hales  him  into 
court  and  asks, 

'^Heinrich,  where  do  you  stand?" 
Sentimentality  has  kept  the  Ger- 
man-American the  man-without-a- 
country  that  today  he  appears  to  the 
majority  of  his  fellow-citizens  to  be. 
America  should  have  been  more  ob- 
servant. She  should  have  seen  that 
we  German-Americans  needed  some 
friendly  attention.  America  did  not 
see,  but  Germany  did.  Germany — 
far-sighted,  keen  for  openings — 
played  on  the  German-American's 
sentimentality  in  every  way  she  knew. 
She  sent  silver-tongued  orators  to 
thrill  us;  she  sent  ponderous  pro- 
fessors to  give  our  banquet-dreams  a 
pseudo-intellectual  basis;  she  sent  se- 
cret agents;  she  sent  organizers.  She 
hinted  strongly  that  there  was  an  Order 
of  the  Red  Eagle  or  an  Order  of  the 
Crown  waiting  for  the  German-Ameri- 
can who  loyally  served  Germany's 
cause;  she  whispered  in  the  ears  of 
editors  dark  secrets  concerning  anti- 
German     persecutions,     Anglo-Saxon 


110     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

presumption    and    similar    "nativist" 
hobgoblins. 

It  was  a  long  skilful  cast;  the 
imitation  butterfly  beautifully  con- 
cealed the  hook;  and  we  German- 
Americans  bit. 

Indeed,  the  German-American  is 
the  victim  of  an  illusion.  He  has 
allowed  himself  to  believe,  and  he  has 
been  cruelly  led  to  believe  that  he  was 
a  most  particular  kind  of  fish,  at  home 
in  two  elements,  the  water  and  the 
air.  He  has  been  led  to  think  that 
he  is  exempt  from  that  law,  which  is 
not  only  biblical,  that  no  man  can 
serve  two  masters.  He  has  been  told 
that  he  must  serve  two  masters. 

An  illusion  has  tied  the  German- 
American  hand  and  foot.  That  illu- 
sion is  the  sentimental  idea  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  loyalty  of  the  emo- 
tions separate  and  apart  from  loyalty 
of  the  hands,  a  loyalty  which  may 
safely  be  given  to  Germany  without 
disturbing  in  any  degree  the  loyalty 
of  the  hands  which  is  due  the  United 
States. 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     Ill 

That  notion  is  false  and  pernicious! 
The  German  language  itself  has  the 
only  adequate  word  for  it.  It  is 
Bloedsinn. 

No  man  can  serve  two  masters;  for 
either  he  will  hate  the  one,  and  love 
the  other;  or  else  he  ivill  hold  to  the 
one  and  despise  the  other. 

No  American  of  German  blood  can 
in  this  crisis  cleave  with  his  heart  to 
Germany  and  be  anything  but  disloyal 
to  the  United  States. 


XIV 

\V/Il  are  men  of  flesh  and  bone,  but 
VV  we  are,  first  of  all  and  above 
all,  beings  of  spirit  and  fire  who  give 
their  allegiance  not  as  body  and  blood 
dictate  but  as  the  discriminating  mind 
commands.  Germany  is  indeed  the 
parent  of  our  bodies,  but  America  is 
the  father  and  guardian  of  our  liber- 
ated spirits.  America,  who  gives  to 
each  one  of  us  the  patient  teaching  he 
is  wise  enough  to  ask  for  and  accept; 
who  reaches  down  to  us  of  herself  no 
benefits,  but  allows  one  and  all 
equally  to  strive  for  and  achieve, 
each  according  to  his  power,  the  bless- 
ings of  life  as  he  sees  them;  who 
gives  us  no  government  but  that  which 
we  ourselves  make  for  ourselves — 
chaos,  if  we  so  wish,  order  if  we  so 
desire;  who  sets  no  limit  to  the  possi- 
bilities of  our  lives  save  the  limits  of 
112 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     113 

nature  and  our  own  wisdom  and  will! 

Americans  of  German  blood,  our 
place  is  here!  Here  is  the  home  to 
which  henceforth  body  and  mind, 
spirit  and  heart  belong!  This  is  the 
air  in  which,  as  nowhere  else,  that 
which  is  highest  in  us  can  breathe  and 
live! 

A  German  poet,  Gottfried  Keller, 
who  truly  loved  German  woods  and 
hills,  wrote  many  years  ago  of  that 
love  of  the  homeland  which  under  cir- 
cumstances becomes  a  fetter  and 
makes  men  "who  should  have  put  be- 
hind them  childish  things,  trifle  with 
puerile  toys,"  made  ridiculous  by  the 
crafty  tyranny  of  sentiment. 

"Hier  trenne  sich  der  lang  vereinte  Strom! 
Versiegend  schwinde  der  im  alten  Staube, 
Der  andere  breche  sich  ein  neues  Bette! 
Denn  einen  Pontifex  nur  fasst  der  Dom, 
Das  ist  die  Freiheit,  der  polit'sche  Glaube, 
Der  lost  und  bindet  jede  Seelenkette ! " 

Here  is  our  home.  Indeed,  we  have 
no  other  home.  If  in  our  momentary 
passion  and  under  the  influence  of  an 
illusion,  we  stand  aside  now,  saying 


114     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

to  the  rest  of  the  American  people, 
"We  will  do  our  duty.  We  will  help 
you  with  our  hands  and  our  treasure, 
but  remember  our  hearts  are  not  with 
you";  if  we  say  that,  we  are  lost;  we 
will  be  homeless  wanderers  on  the 
face  of  the  earth. 

For  Germany  will  give  us  no  refuge. 
In  Germany  today  no  one  is  hated  and 
despised  as  we  German-Americans. 
For  Germany  is  saying,  "These  folk 
who  call  themselves  Germans  and 
call  themselves  Americans  have 
proved  themselves  neither  one  nor  the 
other.  They  have  neither  helped  the 
country  of  their  origin  nor  the  coun- 
try of  their  adoption.  In  a  war  such 
as  this,  they  have  been  content  to  be 
neither  hot  nor  cold.  God  have  pity 
on  their  souls!     We  will  not." 

The  German  Emperor  himself  years 
ago  spoke  the  final  word  concerning 
divided  allegiance:  "German- Ameri- 
cans? I  recognize  no  German- Ameri- 
cans. I  recognize  only  Germans  or 
Americans." 

This  is  a  grave  hour  for  us  Ameri- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     115 

cans  of  German  blood.  Shall  we,  in 
future,  be  jeered  and  shunned  as 
renegades  both  in  Germany  and  in 
America?  Shall  it  be  said  of  us,  the 
world  over,  that,  faced  by  the  great- 
est issue  of  modern  times,  we  were  so 
tied  to  dreams  and  resentments  that 
we  were  unable  firmly  and  unmistak- 
ably to  range  ourselves  with  those  who 
were  fighting  for  the  ideals  for  which 
our  fathers  fought  and  suffered? 
Shall  this  be  said  of  us? 

The  time  has  come  to  forget  griev- 
ances. Some  among  us  Americans  of 
German  blood  believe  that,  in  the  heat 
of  bitter  controversies,  they  have  been 
wronged.  But  we  ourselves  have  not 
all  been  guiltless.  For  the  sake  of  a 
great  ideal  in  peril,  but  if  not  for  that, 
then  for  the  sake  of  our  own  future 
peace  and  happiness  and  the  peace 
and  happiness  of  our  children,  it  is 
deeply  urgent  that  we  should  put  the 
past  behind  us  and  associate  ourselves 
whole-heartedly  with  this  America 
which  is  indeed  as  much  our  America 
as  it  is  the  America  of  the  men  and 


116    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

women  whose  fathers  fought  at  Lex- 
ington. 

The  time  has,  indeed,  come  to  for- 
get grievances  and  to  forget  other 
things  beside  grievances.  The  time 
has  come  not  only  for  Fritz  and  Hein- 
rich  to  put  behind  them  sentimental 
memories,  but  for  their  more  prosper- 
ous brethren  to  forget  those  "German 
interests"  which  in  the  time  of  national 
peril,  they  are  still  seeking  to  con- 
serve. For  many  Americans  of  Ger- 
man blood  are  still  straddling,  anx- 
ious to  serve  America  as  much  as 
personal  safety  demands,  but  eager  not 
to  do  anything  that  will  make  it  im- 
possible for  them,  after  the  war,  to 
renew  those  profitable  "German  con- 
nections" which,  in  former  days, 
helped  them  to  bread  and  butter  and 
jam. 

This  is  not  a  safe  time  for  neutrals 
,.  or  straddlers  or  for  men  who  indig- 
nantly assert  their  complete  American- 
ism even  while  they  keep  one  eye 
cocked  to  Germany's  trade  after  the 
war. 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     117 

It  is  a  safe  time  only  for  men  capa- 
ble of  heroic  decisions. 

The  choice  we  are  asked  to  make  is 
a  hard  choice.  It  is  a  choice  that  the 
English  colonists  made  when  they 
fought  their  mother  country.  It  is  a 
choice  that  many  men  both  South  and 
North  made  during  the  Civil  War 
against  their  own  fathers  and  brothers. 
It  is  a  choice  which  the  German  Revo- 
lutionists of  1848  made  when  they 
fought  against  fellow  Germans  who 
denied  them  the  institutions  of  free 
men.  In  1776  in  America,  in  1848 
in  Germany,  the  principle  of  per- 
sonal liberty  was  involved,  and  men 
who  loved  liberty  chose  to  fight  their 
own  flesh  and  blood  rather  than  sacri- 
fice a  principle  which  they  knew  was 
fundamental.  They  made  the  diffi- 
cult choice  and  we  honor  them  today 
as  heroes. 

Who  remembers  the  men  who  ruled 
Prussia  in  1848?  But  all  the  world 
remembers  the  men  who  defied  Prus- 
sia— Kinkel,  Schurz,  Herwegh,  Frei- 
ligrath. 


118     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

Hear  once  more  the  words  of  Dr. 
Nicolay  crying  across  the  sea  to  us 
from  the  prison  where  Prussia  has 
confined  him — this  valiant  spirit  who 
of  all  Germany's  intellectual  leaders 
has  been  almost  the  only  one  to  retain 
the  ability  to  think  for  himself  and  the 
courage  to  speak  what  he  thinks. 

"Once  upon  a  time,  men  loved  an 
ideal,"  he  says;  "or,  if  a  man  was 
without  an  ideal,  he  loved  certain  ma- 
terial advantages,  and  when  a  man 
believed  that  he  could  realize  this  ideal 
or  these  material  benefits  in  or  by 
means  of  the  country  where  he  dwelt 
and  where  he  had  been  born,  he  loved 
that  country  as  the  bearer  of  that  ideal, 
fought  for  that  country,  sacrificed  him- 
self for  that  country.  But  when  that 
country  of  his  failed  to  satisfy  that 
ideal,  he  cast  it  from  him,  stood  sadly 
apart  (for  no  one  finds  it  pleasant  to 
stand  alone)  or  even  fought  against 
his  country. 

"It  is  just  the  noblest  men  and 
women  in  history  who  have  so  acted." 

Our  fathers  are  among  those  "no- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     119 

blest"  folk.  With  deep  pride  we  re- 
member it. 

They  had  a  high  ideal  and  fought 
their  own  rulers  to  attain  it.  They 
failed  and  left  their  home-land,  to 
pursue  in  the  New  World  that  ideal  of 
liberty  that  could  find  no  breathing- 
space  in  the  Old. 

Today,  for  the  same  great  ideal,  we 
their  descendants  are  asked  to  make  a 
choice  similar  to  the  choice  they  made 
before  us.  Have  we  the  vision,  have 
we  the  moral  courage  to  make  it? 
Shall  our  children  walk  with  heads 
high  henceforth?  Or  shall  they  walk, 
lonely,  unhappy,  sullen,  rebellious, 
with  bowed  heads  and  averted  faces, 
hated  by  Germany,  scorned  and  dis- 
trusted by  America? 

On  us  depends  their  fate. 

America  is  at  war  with  Germany. 
Soon  American  armies  will  be  clash- 
ing with  German  armies.  Our  lists 
of  dead  and  wounded  will  then  con- 
tain not  ten  or  twenty  names  but 
twenty  hundred  and  twenty  thousand. 
It  is  then  that  the  bitterness  and  agony 


120    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

of  war  will  bite  into  the  hearts  of  the 
American  people.  It  is  then  that 
America  will  begin  to  hate,  as  Ger- 
many began  to  hate  after  the  Marne, 
and  England  began  to  hate  after  Ypres 
and  Neuve  Chapelle.  It  is  then  that 
anti-German  hysteria  will  sweep  over 
this  country  until  every  man  with  Ger- 
man blood  in  his  veins  and  a  German 
name  and  German  words  on  his  lips 
will  become  Anathema  to  the  stricken 
mothers  and  fathers  of  fallen  sons; 
unless — 

Unless  we,  Americans  of  German 
origin,  stand  forth  now,  individually 
and  collectively,  openly  and  abso- 
lutely, for  America  and  against  Ger- 
many; in  no  way  denying  our  blood, 
in  no  way  denying  the  heritage  of 
our  fathers;  but,  rather,  asserting 
them,  crying,  "America,  look  on  us! 
Much  have  we  received,  much  is  re- 
quired of  us.  Behold,  assuredly  it 
shall  be  said  of  us  that  we  who  re- 
ceived freely,  when  the  need  came, 
freely  give!" 

If  we  stand  forth  thus,  unmistak- 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     121 

ably,  there  will  run  a  cheer  from  one 
end  of  this  country  to  the  other  that 
will  shake  thrones,  and  hearten  lovers 
of  liberty  and  democracy  in  every 
trench  and  camp  not  only  among  the 
armies  of  America  and  the  Allies,  but 
among  the  armies  of  Germany  herself. 
There  will  be  no  anti-German  hysteria 
then,  no  persecution  of  men  with  Ger- 
man names.  For  America  and  then 
the  world  will  see  at  last  clearly  that 
this  is  not  a  war  of  many  nations 
against  the  Teuton  race,  but  a  war  of 
men  of  every  race  who  love  liberty 
and  justice  against  a  System  which 
stands  on  despotism  and  force. 

We  have  the  opportunity  to  make 
America  and  the  rest  of  the  world, 
now,  even  while  they  smite  German 
autocracy,  to  respect  and  even  love 
men  of  German  blood;  we  have  the 
opportunity,  after  the  War,  to  work 
as  no  one  else  can  work  for  mutual 
forgiveness  and  reconciliation. 

We  have  that  opportunity  if  we  take 
our  stand  firmly,  squarely,  unmistak- 
ably now  for  America  and  her  cause. 


122     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

If  we  do  not  take  our  stand  thus,  if 
we  continue  to  appear  neutral,  to  give 
not  our  hearts  but  only  the  work  of 
our  hands  to  America's  battle — noth- 
ing that  we  can  say  or  do  in  the  future 
will  check  the  wave  of  feeling  against 
all  men  and  all  things  of  German 
name  or  origin,  that  is  bound  to  rise 
when  the  War  begins  actually  to 
strike  the  American  people  in  its  ten- 
derest  spot,  the  home.  If  we  do  not 
speak  today  without  equivocation 
nothing  we  say  tomorrow  will  be 
worth  the  breath  it  takes  to  utter  it. 

For  even  though  peace  should  come 
today  or  in  a  month  as  many  a  Ger- 
man-American is  rashly  confident  it 
will  come,  the  problem  for  the  Ameri- 
can of  German  blood  will  not  be  solved 
thereby.  The  responsibilities  of  his 
position  will  be  increased  as  the  re- 
strictions incident  to  a  state  of  war  are 
removed  from  his  speech  and  action. 
Once  more  hotheads  and  irresponsi- 
bles  may  rise  up  here,  there  and  every- 
where preaching  the  glories  of  Ger- 
manism.    Once    more    Congressmen 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     123 

from  German-American  districts  may 
dare  to  cry,  "We  must  forget  party 
and  without  regard  for  previous  affili- 
ations vote  only  for  those  men  who  are 
the  friends  of  Germanism." 

Woe  to  the  Americans  of  German 
origin  then  if  they  have  not  made  their 
position  so  clear  that  no  rash  and  un- 
authorized spokesman  can  persuade 
other  Americans  to  believe  that  he  is 
actually  representative.  If,  after  the 
war,  the  apostles  of  divided  allegiance 
dare  to  raise  their  voices  again  believ- 
ing that  there  are  German-Americans 
who  will  give  them  support,  and  the 
American  people  are  led  to  believe 
that  the  patriotism  of  the  German- 
Americans  during  the  War  has  been 
the  patriotism  not  of  conviction  but 
only  of  convenience,  the  fury  of  their 
fellow-citizens  will  be  without  measure 
and  without  restraint. 

We  Americans  of  German  origin 
stand  at  the  cross-roads.  If  we  step 
forth  now,  without  hesitation  and  with- 
out reserve  for  America  and  her  cause, 
we  will  be   regarded   henceforth   as 


124    WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

Americans  and  nothing  but  Americans, 
loved  and  respected  more  possibly 
than  any  other  element  in  our  popu- 
lation, because  we  have  been  put  to 
the  greatest  test  of  all  and  have  proved 
faithful  to  the  Republic;  if  we  do  not 
so  stand  forth,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
will  be  dug  out  of  the  body  politic  as  a 
worm  is  dug  out  of  an  apple,  and  there 
will  be  mutual  bitterness  and  dissen- 
sion for  generations. 

Let  us  consider,  let  us  consider 
this! 

I,  who  have  presumptuously  taken 
it  on  myself  to  address  to  you  these 
words,  my  fellow-Americans  of  Ger- 
man blood,  I  am  nothing  to  you,  not 
even  a  name.  I  do  not  appeal  to  you 
thus  because  I  imagine  that  I  have 
any  position  or  any  influence  which 
would  give  my  words  weight.  I  have 
no  such  position  or  influence.  There 
are  thousands  of  Americans  of  Ger- 
man blood  more  widely  known  and 
more  influential  than  I. 

I  appeal  to  you  only  because  I  am 


WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND?     125 

one  of  you.  I  have  been  torn  as  you 
are  torn.  I  love  German  men  and 
women  and  German  forests  and  hills 
and  songs  as  you  love  them;  I  too 
have  a  father  in  Germany,  I  too  had 
a  German  mother;  and  I,  too,  have 
brothers  fighting  in  Germany's  armies. 
For  a  time  my  reason  as  well  as  my 
heart  was  with  Germany's  cause,  and 
even  after  my  reason  would  no  longer 
let  me  hope  for  Germany's  triumph, 
for  a  time  my  heart  was  still  rebel- 
liously  thrilled  at  the  news  of  a  Ger- 
man victory. 

So,  perhaps,  I  have  a  right  to  speak. 
I  have  stood  on  Germany's  side,  I 
have  walked  in  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  neutrality,  I  have  stood  and 
I  now  stand  irrevocably  with  the 
cause  of  the  Allies  which,  thank  God, 
is  now  the  cause  of  America. 

And  I  say  to  you  most  solemnly,  the 
time  has  come  for  us  all  who  are  of 
German  origin  to  stand  forth  and, 
individually  and  collectively,  publicly 
declare  ourselves: 

"/,  an  American  citizen  of  German 


126     WHERE  DO  YOU  STAND? 

blood,  believe  in  America,  my  coun- 
try, and  the  principles  of  liberty, 
equality  and  democracy  for  which  she 
stands.  Therefore,  and  inevitably,  I 
am  against  Germany,  I  wish  to  see 
my  country  victorious  and  Germany 
defeated.  To  the  fulfilment  of  this 
wish  I  pledge  my  hands,  my  heart  and 
my  spirit/' 

In  the  taking  and  the  keepmg  of 
that  oath  or  its  equivalent  lies  the 
hope,  lies  the  only  hope  of  the  happi- 
ness and  the  present  and  future  use- 
fulness of  Americans  of  German 
blood. 


THE    END 


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